Baltray is one of my favorite courses in the east of Ireland. This is a great chance to see the course and decide if you want to add it to your next Ireland Golf Adventure.
New from Tom Coyne, A Course Called Ireland is the story of a walking- averse golfer who treks his way around an entire country, spending sixteen weeks playing every seaside hole in Ireland and often battling through all four seasons in one Irish afternoon.
In his thirties, married, and staring down impending fatherhood, Tom Coyne was well familiar with the last refuge of the adult male: the golfing trip. Intent on designing a golf trip to end all others, Coyne looked to Ireland, the place where his father had taught him to love the game years before. As he studied a map of the island and plotted his itinerary, it dawned on Coyne that Ireland was ringed with golf holes. The country began to look like one giant round of golf, so Coyne packed up his clubs and set off to play all of it. And since Irish golfers didn’t take golf carts, neither would he. He would walk the entire way.
Coyne plays everything from the top-ranked links in the world to nine-hole courses crowded with livestock. Along the way, he searches out his family’s roots, discovers that a once-poor country has been transformed by an economic boom, and finds that the only thing tougher to escape than Irish sand traps are Irish pubs. By turns hilarious and poetic, A Course Called Ireland is a magnificent tour of a vibrant land and a paean to the world’s greatest game.Â
About the Author Tom Coyne has written for Golf Magazine and Golfweek magazine. He is the author of Paper Tiger and the novel A Gentleman’s Game, which was adapted into a movie starring Gary Sinise.
The above book description is courtesy of Amazon.com.
If you’re thinking it’s too expensive to plan a Scotland golf trip in 2009, think again. Here’s some good news from VisitScotland.com:
With the dollar growing in strength against the pound, US visitors will have more bang for their buck in Scotland. Compared to the 2007 exchange rate of $2 to £1, Scotland is now 25-30% cheaper for US tourists with an exchange rate of $1.40 to £1. Contributing to these extra savings is the recent reduction in VAT (similar to sales tax) from 17.5% to 15% so if you’re planning a trip now is the time to come to Scotland.
And by planning your own golf trip to Scotland (i.e. not paying a premium to a tour operator) you can save an additional 25-30%. What are you waiting for?!
The details for every golf course and accommodation — and everything else in the guides! — are carefully scrutinized and updated for each edition. Here’s an example from the Scotland Golf Adventure Guide.
All new purchases (immediate download and printed) will receive the updated versions effective immediately. Customers who have purchased a previous PDF version of the guide can download a free update to this latest version. This is just one of the many advantages of purchasing one of my guides.
Updated information includes, but is not limited to:
New courses
New accommodations
Green fees
Golf course contact info (email, web sites, etc.)
Accommodation contact info (email, web sites, etc.)
Flight schedules
If you buy a travel guide book that was printed sometime last year, or you already own one, I can guarantee that a good portion of the information in it is out of date and/or incorrect. By publishing my guides electronically, I can easily deliver you the latest — and most correct — information. And, even after you’ve made a purchase, because you get free updates you’ll always have access to accurate information when you plan your next trip.
Why would anyone publish and purchase any other way?
On a recent golf trip to Ireland and had the opportunity to again play one of my favorite courses in Ireland, Carne Golf Links (Belmullet). If you haven’t played Carne, I highly recommend it.
The November 2005 issue of Golf Magazine has an excellent article about Carne, and opens with this:
When you first see the links from the back of the clubhouse, Carne takes your breath away. An untamed furl of land sitting between the Atlantic Ocean and Blacksod Bay in northwest Ireland, Carne is a panorama of greens and browns, of wide open spaces suddenly braked by the shadows of marram-covered dunes. But as your eyes follow the slopes uphill, they’re suddenly jolted as the land crashes into frantic breakneck falls down cavernous valleys pocked with craters that look like scars left by exploded artillery shells.
Next time you’re in Ireland, take a break from usual suspects (Lahinch, Ballybunion, Tralee, etc.) and make your way up north to play courses like Carne, Enniscrone, Donegal, etc. You won’t regret it. The photo above was taken by me. If you’d like to see the beauty of Carne as visualized by a professional golf course photographer, check out Aidan Bradley’s photos of Carne for a real treat.
More details about Carne Golf Links and on the best way to plan a golf trip to Ireland can be found in the Ireland Golf Adventure Guide.
Here’s a cool image created at Wordle.net using the text found on this blog:
Remember, now more than ever it pays to plan your own golf trip to Ireland and Scotland rather than pay a tour operator to do what you can easily do yourself.
Finally, an online tee-time booking system for tons of great golf courses across Ireland and the UK! Brought to you by the good folks at BRS Golf.
In the past I have been hesitant about using online booking systems run by many of the golf clubs across Ireland, Scotland, and England. Why? Well, let’s just say their speciality has been in running and maintaining golf courses and not online web-based tee time systems. I was always worried my reservation would go into a black hole and I’d show up at the club and be greeted by blank stares followed by, “Sorry Mr. Babcock, we have never heard of you and we’re fully booked today.” That would be a disaster.
BRS Golf to the rescue! They run a very useful and practical online tee-time booking system utilized by over 110 courses in Ireland and 90 courses in the UK (and growing!). For example, Carne Golf Links uses the BRS Golf system for their online booking. When you enter the system you see available tee time slots on a month by month basis and then can drill down to a particular day and pick specific times for 1, 2, 3, or 4 golfers — and see the green fee rate.
At North and West Coast Links Ireland you can use the BRS Golf system to book tee times at six different courses (Ardglass, Ballyliffen, Carne, Connemara, County Sligo, Enniscrone, and Rosapenna) in one fell swoop.
So, if you’re booking your Ireland or Scotland Golf Adventure tee times online be sure to look for “brsgolf.com” in the URL. If you see that, you know your tee time booking experience will be a successful one.
After many years of golf trips around the world, I’ve come up with a golf trip checklist that makes it easy for me to get ready for each trip and also to minimize the gear I’ve got to lug around, while still making sure I’ve got everything I need. You can download the checklist below to customize it for yourself.
You may see a few odd things on the checklist — like packing only two pair of underwear! — so I’d like to explain those below and give you some of my specific product recommendations.
Checklist Details
One fundamental is that you don’t need to pack “ten of everything” for a ten day trip! Most itineraries will/should have a 2-day stay in the same place at some point, preferrably near the middle of the trip. Use that opportunity to get some of your clothes (shirts, pants, socks, etc.) laundered at the hotel while you’re out playing golf. The other thing is that you can easily wear the same golf shirt a couple of times, especially if you’ve been wearing an undershirt. It just doesn’t get that hot (usually) in Ireland and Scotland and you’re not going to be sweating up a storm.
Golf Shirts — Four golf shirts is enough for any length trip. You can easily wear the same shirt more than once and you can always get them laundered mid trip. Plus, chances are you’ll want to purchase a shirt or two along the way as a momento.
Non-cotton Undershirts — I like to layer for warmth. Wearing an undershirt also extends the “wearabilty” of your golf shirt. The key here is it shouldn’t be cotton. Any of the polyester/spandex blends from REI, Nike, UnderArmour, etc. will work great.
Washable Underwear — Yes, you only need two pair of underwear for the entire trip regardless of how long it is. Not only does this save space, but you won’t have to lug a bunch of dirty underwear around in your suitcase. I would highly recommend the Ex Officio boxer briefs. They come in briefs and boxer styles as well.
Here’s how the “2-Pair of Underwear” system works. After golf, you come back to your hotel and pop into the shower wearing your underwear. While showering (leave your underwear on) soap up and wash yourself and your underwear. Near the end, take ‘em off and rinse well. After drying yourself off, place your just-washed underwear on a dry towel, roll it up, and then stand on the towel to extract as much moisture out of the underwear as you can. Remove from towel and hang over a chair to dry. Get dressed and put on the clean underwear that you washed the night before. Wear that underwear for the evening (while your just-washed pair is drying) and for the next day. Using this system you will always have a clean pair of underwear on hand.
After Golf Clothes — Bring a pair of dark trousers and a couple of nice button-down dress shirts. Don’t wear your golf clothes when you go out for dinner. And leave the jeans at home; they are heavy and bulky. Try your best not to look (and act) like a tourist.
Travel Luggage
I use The Last Bag from Club Glove which is perfect for holding the golf clubs, shoes, rain gear, balls, and extra clothing. It’s also compact once you take everything out and so fits well in the rental car. Do NOT use one of the hardshell cases; they are just too bulky and take up too much space once in country.
My suitcase is from Travelpro, the Platinum 5 22″ Expandable Rollaboard Suiter (suit holder stuff removed). It’s not too big — so I’m not tempted to bring too much — but not too small either.
The Scenario
Four golfers from New York want to enjoy five days of golf in Ireland this summer.
Using the Ireland Golf Adventure Guide
Here’s how a user of the guide might plan such a trip. The text below is basically describing the thought process and the use of the guide, while working through the trip-planning steps (p. 2) then making reservations and tee times. In this fictitious example, the trip planner is basically thinking out loud. Let’s go!
Buy the Collins Visitors Map Ireland (p. 3). I won’t need the map while planning this simple itinerary, but I’ll want it in Ireland to help navigate the Irish roads. From the PDF version of the guide, I can click on the picture of the map (or its ISBN number) and it takes me right to the web page on Amazon.com where I can buy it. Very convenient.
Start building the rough itinerary (p. 6). We only have five days, so I want to minimize driving. Looking at the Driving Times & Distances map (p. and Golf Courses & Towns Map (p. 9) I see that the southwest area is good. The Getting to Ireland section (pp. 18-19 are relevant to travellers from the U.S.) recommends flying into Shannon. I’ll figure out where to stay later.
Make a list of courses (pp. 7-17). I see that possible courses in this area are: Tralee, Dingle, Dooks, Killarney, Waterville, Ballybunion Old, Doonbeg, Lahinch Old, Old Head, Dromoland, and Adare. That’s enough; we only have five days.
Fine tune the course list. Having previously read about Tralee, Ballybunion, Doonbeg, and Lahinch, those go to the top of my wish list. I need one more course. Since we’re playing Tralee, let’s stay in Tralee after we arrive (p. 28). Old Head is quite a drive, so that’s out. Waterville is a good course, but not that close. I decide against Dromoland and Adare; we want another links course. That leaves Dooks and Dingle. I check out their relative ranking (p. 16) and Dingle comes out ahead. I see that Eddie Hackett did some design work in 1972. I look up Hackett in the Golf Course Designer index (p. 17) and see the other courses he designed. I’m impressed and decide to play Dingle. Our five courses are: Ballybunion Old, Dingle, Doonbeg, Lahinch, Tralee. But that’s just a list, not an itinerary. I need to put them in playing order.
Arrange the courses in sequence (p. 6). Since we’re staying in Tralee, it might be nice to play Tralee the first day so we don’t have to rush in the morning. The Itinerary Tips (p. 6) and Choosing Where to Stay (p. 23) lead me to decide on playing Ballybunion on the way to Lahinch (due to the change of accommodation). That means we should play Dingle on day 2. Ballybunion lands on day 3, and Lahinch and Doonbeg are pretty much interchangeable as the last two days.
Pick when to go. In the When to Go section (page 4) I see the weather is good in June and the golf courses less crowded than in July or August. Lets go in June. I check out the average rainfall and temperature graphic (p. 5) and June looks like a good choice.
Transfer to the calendar (p. 6) Using the Course Cards (card_irl200x.pdf), I see that the only course in this list with visitor-policy issues is Tralee. Looking at the detailed visitor policy (p. 15) for Tralee confirms it–no visitors Sunday (all year) or Wednesday (June, July, August). That means we could play our first round in Tralee on a Monday. Looking at the calendar (calendar_irl2007.pdf) for June, I see that Monday, June 5th is a bank holiday and most likely won’t allow visitors (holidays are treated like Sundays). We want to fly on the weekend, so let’s start the trip with the first day of golf at Tralee on June 12th. I write out the courses on the calendar (I print out just page 6 to save paper) and the arrival and departure dates fall out. From the calendar:
June 10 — Depart U.S.
June 11 — Arrive Shannon. Drive to Tralee. Stay in Tralee.
June 12 — Play Tralee. Stay in Tralee.
June 13 — Play Dingle. Stay in Tralee.
June 14 — Play Ballybunion Old. Drive to Lahinch (use Shannon ferry, p. 32). Stay in Lahinch.
June 15 — Play Doonbeg. Stay in Lahinch.
June 16 — Play Lahinch Old. Stay in Lahinch.
June 7 — Drive to airport. Depart Shannon.
Make air travel reservations (pp. 18-19). I now know our desired arrival and departure dates from the planning calendar and use those to book flights. I see (p. 19) that Continental has direct flights between Newark (EWR) and Shannon (SNN). From the PDF version of the guide, I link directly to Continental’s web site and book the flight.
Make the tee times (p. 2). I call the courses myself before 5pm Ireland time, which is noon EST (p. 33), and get the tee times. Alternatively, I could have had SWING (p. 31) do it, but making a tee time in Ireland is really no harder than calling a local course. A few of our courses want fax confirmations and deposits, so I do that with the fax cover page (faxcover_letter.doc) that comes with the guide. Everything has worked out as planned, so we now need places to stay.
Book accommodations. I look up Tralee (p. 28) in the Accommodations section and pick the Grand Hotel because its the least expensive one (I’m frugal). I’m online so I click on the weblink in the guide PDF and check out the hotel’s web site. Looks good to me. I call them up and book two rooms (sharing) for the nights of June 11-13. In Lahinch (p. 26) I go for the Atlantic Hotel. It’s right on the main street in town, which is what we like. I call them up directly and book two rooms for the nights of June 14-16. It’s less than a one-hour drive (p. from Lahinch to Shannon airport so there should be no problem getting there for our Saturday morning (11:20am) departure flight. I book the rooms directly myself; it’s just a lot easier than fussing with web-based systems and when I’m done I know for sure that the reservation has been made.
Rent a car. Since there are four golfers, it looks like were going to need a minivan/minibus (p. 29). I normally rent from Avis so I check them out first and get a quote, noting all of the options on the worksheet (p. 30). I then checked out Argus and Dan Dooley for their quotes. After comparing it all, I rented from one of them. * I could have had my travel agent do this step.
Take the trip. I take along parts of the guide in a clear plastic envelope which also holds the Collins road map. Along the way it can be used to gather score cards, brochures, etc. It’s great that I don’t have to lug around an entire guide book; I just take the pages I need, which is much lighter and more compact. There are some good tips in the Practical Matters section (pp. 32-33) that help me bring the right electrical plug adapter and decide to not bother with travelers checks this time. During the trip, we consult the Golf Courses (pp. 10-15) and Driving Times (p. sections to get directions to the course and determine when to leave the hotel so we arrive at least 30 minutes before our tee time. It’s nice to have all of this information with us.
Estimated Price Per Person
Airfare
$609.
Continental Airlines round trip between Newark and Shannon
* I didn’t actually contact the courses, hotels, or car rental companies during the writing of this particular example, nor do I normally rent from nor necessarily endorse Avis. This is a hypothetical example.
Irish Open at Baltray (Co. Louth)
Start building the rough itinerary (p. 6). We only have five days, so I want to minimize driving. Looking at the Driving Times & Distances map (p. 
and Golf Courses & Towns Map (p. 9) I see that the southwest area is good. The Getting to Ireland section (pp. 18-19 are relevant to travellers from the U.S.) recommends flying into Shannon. I’ll figure out where to stay later.
Transfer to the calendar (p. 6) Using the Course Cards (card_irl200x.pdf), I see that the only course in this list with visitor-policy issues is Tralee. Looking at the detailed visitor policy (p. 15) for Tralee confirms it–no visitors Sunday (all year) or Wednesday (June, July, August). That means we could play our first round in Tralee on a Monday. Looking at the calendar (calendar_irl2007.pdf) for June, I see that Monday, June 5th is a bank holiday and most likely won’t allow visitors (holidays are treated like Sundays). We want to fly on the weekend, so let’s start the trip with the first day of golf at Tralee on June 12th. I write out the courses on the calendar (I print out just page 6 to save paper) and the arrival and departure dates fall out. From the calendar:
Make air travel reservations (pp. 18-19). I now know our desired arrival and departure dates from the planning calendar and use those to book flights. I see (p. 19) that Continental has direct flights between Newark (EWR) and Shannon (SNN). From the PDF version of the guide, I link directly to Continental’s web site and book the flight.
Rent a car. Since there are four golfers, it looks like were going to need a minivan/minibus (p. 29). I normally rent from Avis so I check them out first and get a quote, noting all of the options on the worksheet (p. 30). I then checked out Argus and Dan Dooley for their quotes. After comparing it all, I rented from one of them.
