Interestingly enough, golfers frequently display worse judgment on harder courses than on the easier ones. Lord Belmont in Northern Ireland: Royal County Down Golf Club - Blogger As such, some golfers opt to play down the center line, yeilding the partial view of the flag as seen above. Hole 3 (SI 3) 475 yards Par 4 is a second and more difficult with handicap golfers likely to be short and in need of an accurate chip and run, and a single putt, to get a par. (In journalistic jargon, withholding an article's most important fact until well into the story is "burying the lead."). Before teeing off on the 11th hole, we relaxed our pace further, by climbing into a jungle of whins and briars to look for a century-old relic that a caddie had told me about in 2011: the remains of a small stone building, which the maintenance crew had uncovered during an aggressive gorse-removal project. EQUIPMENT HIRE Although much shorter than the Championship Links, The Annesley Links is still a very testing golf course, with magnificent views of sea, mountains and duneland. Before his visit, the green was in approximately the same place but was a blind one shotter. It's hard not to wish, as you turn toward town, that the club's founders had appropriated 50 or 100 more acres of the wildest linksland, which continues another two miles up the coast. is an extension of the fairway but that falls away on both sides. Note the fearsome must go up and over the dune. Played from an elevated tee, the green is still in reach for the tiger golfer, which was the lasting attribute of the old 16th. 4 on Golf Digest's World 100 Greatest Courses list. There's also a Royal County Down Ladies Golf Club, which has a small clubhouse of its own, near the first tee of the Annesley course. Founded in 1946, Mourne Golf Club is one of three clubs in Newcastle and is part of the world-famous golfing campus at Royal County Down. The par 71 layout, which is currently ranked number one in Golf Monthly's top 100 courses in the UK and Ireland, last hosted the tournament in 2015. You must be committed from the tee because the blind . Another, he said, is understanding that every hole is a slight dogleg, although the bend is often concealed. It's an exhilarating location for a classic links golf course where the Bay of Dundrum sweeps out into the Irish Sea and where the mighty peak of Slieve Donard (3,000 ft.) casts its shadow over the town. However, the first course at County Down does begin with Old Tom Morris who was hired for 4 guineas to build a championship course at Newcastle in 1890. The car trip is just over an hour and a half if you stick to the motorway, but I had time so at Newry I turned southeast, onto the A2, which in that part of the country is also known as the Mourne Coastal Route. The next day, I drove still farther up the coast, to the village of Strangford, through a region that a sign described, accurately, as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. But if I truly had a single-destination global golf pass I'd do what I did recently: I'd travel to Northern Ireland and lose myself on the course that native players call Newcastle and the rest of us know as Royal County Down. Hole 6 (SI 11) 396 yards Par 4 plays from a raised tee and has a large bunker front right of the green and two others either side of the green itself. Against the magnificent backdrop of the Mountains of Mourne, the links stretches along the shores of Dundrum Bay, zigzagging back and forth to provide a different vista from virtually every hole. 1968. However, what for instance would be gained if the blind tee balls on the aforementioned holes were altered? Third hole, 475/455 yards; This hole stands side by side with the third at The Country Club in Brookline and the 3rd at National Golf Links of America as the authors favorite 3rd in the world. USE OF AND/OR REGISTRATION ON ANY PORTION OF THIS SITE CONSTITUTES ACCEPTANCE OF OURVISITOR AGREEMENT(UPDATED 1/6/23),PRIVACY AND COOKIES NOTICE(UPDATED 1/4/23) ANDCALIFORNIA PRIVACY NOTICE. You might feel almost a moral obligation to choose the Old Course at St. Andrews, but there are other possibilities. Appropriate dress is required by everyone. The dunes, the seascapes, the town in the distance are all magical -- not a thing out of place. The fact that the full course was ready for play in July 1890 is proof that golf course design in those days was most unlike the modern methodology and that, like most great links courses, Royal County Down was created from the wonderful natural dune-land which was already there, without the need to indulge in any major earth-moving. County Down: the finest combination of beauty and challenge in golf. The course has more blind shots than any modern architect would tolerate, but, as Browne observed, a shot is blind only the first time you play it, and then only if no one has told you where to aim. The address of Royal County Down Golf Club is: Golf Links Road, Newcastle, Co Down. Following in the time honored tradition of so many of the finest, older links, the green follows the general slope of its surrounds. Shipping Clubs. So the question is begged: who is George Combe? Thursday - morning Sunday - afternoon Please make all bookings through the Secretary's Office. All bookings are subject to our Booking Conditions . Das Mekka fr Golf Puristen. Royal County Down Golf Club, Newcastle, Northern Ireland 7,181 yards, Par 71. This place has made a series of outstanding contributions to Irish golf thanks to hosting many important tournaments. In the extremely well researched centenary book Royal County Down Golf Club: The First Century by Harry McCaw and Brum Henderson (highly recommended and available at the office of The Royal County Down Golf Club), a map in the inside front jacket shows what must be Old Tom Morriss routing. It has 350 members, who can play . At Royal County Down Golf Club there are 36 holes in total. McDonald wins Greenes Presidents Day at Mourne, Flying finish sees McKenna land the PGA Tankard. Royal County Down Golf Club Photos & High-Res Pictures - Getty Images The first defect is how narrow the fairways are. Golfing at the Royal County Down Golf Club is not cheap but it is rewarding. Or maybe Donald Trump could be persuaded to buy up the adjacent neighborhood and dump a few million tons of sand on top of it. 1 and No. There is some evidence to suggest that even before then a rudimentary form of golf was being played by the townsfolk on the rabbit warren at Newcastle. A benefit of entering Newcastle from the south is that, as you approach the town, the curve of Dundrum Bay unspools before you. 2023 Mourne Golf Club.36 Golf Links Road, Newcastle, Co Down,BT33 0ANE: info@mournegolfclub.co.uk | T: +44 (0) 28 437 23889Terms of use | Privacy. The Championship Course and The Annesley Links. Ein einmaliges Golferlebnis in diesen riesigen Dnen ist es allemal. The British Ladies Amateur Golf Championship were held on the course in June 2019. Public. Twelfth hole, 525/470 yards; As witnessed each spring at Augusta National Golf Club, give and take is crucial to good golf architecture. I had arranged beforehand to play with Kevin Markham, an Irish writer, photographer and freelance marketing guy, whom I'd met at Portstewart in 2012, when he joined my friends and me for a game while his wife waited in the clubhouse, reading a book. The front nine at County Down is perhaps the best front side in all of golf. Such a reference is simply not accurate as Combe and other Club members deserve the lion share of the credit. The 14th hole rests easy upon the land, a great compliment. One difficulty is visual: the 14th is where the course emerges from the dunes and you first become aware of the residential subdivisions across the street. "It's the best golf deal in the world," Killough said. More so than any other course with which the author is familiar, good driving at Country Down does further to assist the golfer play to his handicap. Most popular courses with available tee times. The fairways are narrow with the greens having subtle slopes and run-off areas for misplaced shots. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. However, as seen below, once the approach was not blind, requirements for accuracy increased. The beautiful sweep of the fairway just over the crest of the dune is a fine example of how Combe integrated a natural landform into the design. This view looking 250 yards back up the ninth hole highlights the epic nature of the hole that Colt created. The bunkers pictured above are 35 yards shy of the putting surface and make laying up problematic from a missed tee ball. Harry Colt rerouted what is todays 8th hole to stay atop the dune as opposed to returning back down near the 1st green. This Royal County Down Golf Club review needs to mention some rules that visitors must observe. Yet, sadly, like The Old Course at St. Andrews, Royal County Down would never be re-created today. However, it was the development of a railway line from Belfast to Newcastle by the Belfast & County Down Railway and the emergence of Newcastle as a desirable seaside resort in Victorian times which provided the impetus for the first formal golf course. [1] Significant tournaments Royal County Down Golf Club - Golfing in Ireland Hole 13 (SI 2) 446 yards Par 4 is guarded by bushes off the tee with the winding fairway requiring a shot over rough for those seeking a par. Blue 7186 yds can involve carries of 250 yards Royal County Down Golf Club in Northern Ireland will host the 2024 Horizon Irish Open. As such, it has remained in play for at least one hundred years. bunkers guarding the inside of the dogleg suggest not. The rates are subject to an annual update. Search instead in Creative? At Pine Valley, the approach shot is encouraged to bounce onto the green from the right. The 12th and the new 16th are both such holes. Royal County Down is located in one of the worlds most naturally beautiful links settings in the Murlough Nature Reserve. A modern architect would either modify the dunescape or end up with a largely different routing, claiming that some of the features at County Down are anachronistic. He introduced himself. The short 7th is the perfect place to right the ship and yet, like the 6th, it features one of the most severe greens on the course with its left quarter sloping off and toward the deepest greenside bunker on the course. Kevan Whitson, the head professional, joined us for nine holes, though without his clubs. Thanks to work done to the dune shy of the green in the 1920s, the golfer in the middle section of the fairway gets a view of at least a portion of the second flag as well as some of the putting surface. Harry Colts reduction of blind approach shots coupled with the creation of several of the finest green complexes at County Down garnered high praise from all quarters. As with Oakmont Country Club and Pine Valley Golf Club, County Down stands apart as reminding one of no other course in the world in part because it was designed not by a professional architect but rather by strong willed people with a genuine love and feel for the game. Browne learned to play links golf on the club's second course, called the Annesley, which intersects the championship course but is nearly 2,500 yards shorter. PO Box 2566, Southern Pines, NC 28388. Royal County Down - Atlantic Way Touring Later that day, Harry McCawa past captain of Royal County Down and the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrewstold me that he thought the structure might once have served as the literal "club house": the place where early players stored their clubs. Captain in 1896 and Convenor of the Green from 1900 to 1913. The greens are fast and many are domed, rejecting any shot lacking conviction. In the early 1900s, a member named George Combe lengthened the course and made many lasting improvements, and Harry Vardon and Harry S. Colt made more. The Club has two eighteen-hole links courses, viz. Mourne has 350 members, who can play the Annesley course whenever they like and the championship course on any day but Saturdayand all for a little over 800 a year. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. The phone number of Royal County Down Golf Club is: +44 (0)28 4372 3314. Irish Open 2015: How Royal County Down Golf Club and Newcastle are The Slieve Donard has one of the coolest features of any hotel I know: signs in the lobby that point to the golf course, which is a short walk down a hallway, past the spa, out the backdoor and across a parking lot. Irish roads are narrow under any circumstances; they become narrower if your eyes are repeatedly drawn to the hills and out to seaa danger that day, because the sky was so clear that I could see the Isle of Man, halfway to the English mainland. Dunes on both sides squeeze the fairway 140 to 60 yards from the green and these natural landforms were used to great effect in creating different playing strategies. The links courses of the British Isles aren't often spoken of as a cold-season alternative to Myrtle Beach, but why not? Yes, it is possible to rent golf clubs at Royal County Down Golf Club. However, it can be quite hard trying to decide where to, Code Of Conduct at The Royal County Down Golf Club. Second hole, 445/385 yards; A course renowned today for its blind shots, there once were many more blind shots, including the approach shot to this green. Seventh hole, 145/125 yards; A maddeningly hole to play, the golfer at this point in his round is thinking surely he is better than his score indicates. Its great attribute is that there is no clearly defined best way to play it. Royal County Down Golf Club: One of the Oldest Irish Courses Royal County Down Golf Club - Tripadvisor Best Western Hotel Dortmund Airport - Tripadvisor The next hole was a semi-blind 200 yarder. A right to left wind can, tragically, make this one of the days most difficult holes. The clubhouse has a fascinating history and is ideally situated a stones throw away from Murlough beach and just metres from the first tee at Royal County Down.

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