Glashedy Course, Ballyliffin
Home to many tournaments and the most recently built of the two Ballyliffin links. It is a Pat Ruddy and Tom Craddock design and is everything a modern / professional links player is looking for. It has length; 7542 yards from the tips, and wide receptive fairways that are a prerequisite of the additional length of modern courses. It is said that European Ryder Cup courses are set up to be shorter but tighter and the American ones longer and wider to suit ‘the bomber’. I got a feeling of the latter here , was it built to attract the American visitor? The difference with American courses is that on missing the fairway you will generally be able to find your ball in lush grass, and with Brooks Koepka or Bryson de Chambeau’s biceps be able to gouge it out. Not so easy here amongst mostly marram grasses and I certainly don't possess the musculature.
For the club golfer this is an enjoyable links course with much variety and some drama. Playing off the whites at 6400 yards in a good breeze was a fair challenge with most of the bunker trouble off the tee and a three wood often the better option. The bunkers and the challenge is commensurate with each of the black, yellow and red tees and an endorsement of colour (sex) blind choice of tees. There is no point in biting off more than you can chew especially when the weather is taken into account. As with most links courses there is less severe bunkering around the greens, excluding the par threes, and the challenge is reading the false fronts, ridges, spines and hollows as you run your shot up to the green, or take your chance with a flighted ball and a capricious wind.
The only other accommodation they have made with a modern setup is the largely flat fairways. Compared to the old course the designers have ironed out a course between, and around, the dunes. I do not mean to cavil but to express the differences between a modern and an ancient links when kit and players were different. The modern club player, facilitated by better equipment, now plays a similar game to the old pros and enjoys the same challenge with one tenth of the expertise! Unlike a few of these old links it has no bonkers quirky holes.
The run from 4 through 7 is possibly the most dramatic; starting with a par 5 which reveals, as you approach the green, great views out to sea. A par 3 follows downhill, into the breeze and out to sea, very easy to be distracted. Then a short par four with a sharply angled dogleg down the hill to your right. Followed by a climb to a devils crest and a panorama back towards the village of Ballyliffin and the seascape. Another par 3 with a tough green ‘to have and to hold’ as there is a pronounced spine across it and balls leak towards the pond. The pond itself an unusual feature on a links course.
There are always shot options on the par 4s and 5s but I found myself slogging up 12 and 13. If I didn’t find myself an Outsider there I certainly did at 14; Camus. In the front bunker I was always confident but forever failing to extricate myself. The one shot I didn’t take was the one I deserved. If you only go in one bunker try this one.
The glory of the natural dunes and the sea air restores the spirits before you reach the next tee. Parched from my time in the desert I was glad to make my way up 18 and the equally panoramic bar and pints of Guinness on parade.
