Golf Digest Top 100 Courses... again

thewobbler wrote: »

I honestly doubt there's a hare's breadth between the 80th and 200th placed courses in Ireland.

I have to disagree, speaking as a member of a >80 course (and having played some of the others) There are some very rough courses out there.

As an example, I wouldnt put Esker Hills above Grange (my course) or Castle.
Grange has been steadily improving course condition over the last 5 years and yet has slipped some 10 places in 4 years.

I guess I just dont get it, what makes Hermitage that much better than Castle?

As you rightly pointed out, a number of the marquee courses are looking rough these days, I found esker hills very rough, same for castleknock & luttrelstown when I played them. Far more unkempt than Grange or Castle, the greens in Grange are perfect 12 months a year (barring pole forking), I couldnt say the same about Druids Glen when I played it a few months ago, likewise for their bunkers.

I think Im going to go ahead and just start ignoring it tbh.

Castleknock has always been good when I've played it but Luttrellstown has gone downhill bigtime.

Played the most course I ever played in a year, last year. I'm a 5 day member and love playing new courses - typically use society golf to do it - or Opens.

If I was to put them in 3 groups, would do as follows. I know sometimes you just get a course on a bad day.

Was blown away with (Condition/Course) - I've put them in order as far as I can remember. Was lucky to be invited to a good few for cheap rounds / free rounds.

Royal County Down
The Island
Enniscrone
Strandhill
Carlow
Royal Curragh
Portmarnock Links
Portmarnock
The European Club
Concra Wood (But rained off going back in Feb)
Tullamore
Portumna
County Sligo
Galway Bay
Douglas


Was very Impressed with

Mount Juilet
Fota (wasn't as good as expected, still class)
Esker Hills
Bearna
Roscrea
Enniscorthy
Naas
Black Bush
Castlewarden
Cahir Park
Bettystown
Beaverstown
Grange Castle ( For all the talk of it being a "kip" - great public golf course)
Carne (Big Trip for poor condition and forward tees, almost below)


Dissapointed (Condition or course) I think if you pay big money condition should be Top.

Druids Glen (Great layout - poor enough condition, shoud be in group 1 if right)
The Heritage (Shocked how much it has fallen)
Lutrellstown (Was always in top condition - fairways too long - greens poor)
New Ross ( I like course - but a little rough these days)
Donabate (Holes too alike - seems to be struggling)
Ballykisteen (Grand - couple of nice holes - but a hotel then course)

Loved the year - best golf year ever - can't see it being repeated. I'd have no problem going back to any course I played if it was handy.

Haven't even started to see courses up North or West/South. Some country for golf.

Montgolfier wrote: »

What do you think about Roscrea going down the crazy golf route? Windmills behind the greens an all...

oh you are quite the wit sir!

mike12 wrote: »

Have played 50 plus of the top 100, grest list of courses for Fixde this year.
Carne was disappointing this year, weather had been tough the year before so the decision was made to move the tees up and the green keepers seem to be spending too much time getting the new 9 ready and not looking after the course.

Think a lot of the ranking points go towards course design a poor design no matter how well kept will ever have a high ranking or Swords open/Corballis would be top 100. Location/setting are also big pluses so when you have a super seaside setting it is always going to score higher than a converted field.

As someone said eariler the top 50 are reasonable but 50 to 150 would be hard to seperate.

The greens at Carne got off to a slow start last year and for a few reasons, were affected well in to the summer season. It wasn't - despite rumours - that the green staff were spending their time on the new nine.

You make a good point regards how people rate courses. One of my pet peeves is that people put too much emphasis on day-to-day conditioning. Whilst I like a course to be presented well, there are many more fundamental issues that decide whether a course is great, good, ordinary or poor. One advantage of the panel is that it utilises people from different parts of the industry. The agronomists / greenkeepers think more about turf quality, the players sometimes get too caught up on challenge... I think more about topography, design and variety.

Going back to the links bias, I know it looks that way but in reality, most of the great inland courses are great because they share some similarities with links golf e.g. firm conditions, undulating land, strategic bunkering... in essence the ground game...

Kevin - The magazine wish to keep a Top 100. Personally, I'd like to see the second 50 just listed in alphabetical order. Don't think it will happen though.

Trapper – lol , seriously doubt it.

Have played 41 of top 100.

Was a crazy year – had a few tough years, so 2014 we just spoilt ourselves, doing stuff we wanted to do for a change. 2015 will be different, but still intend to finish the top 50. I know the actual number is not important, but want to play all the best courses in Ireland. I will too – may take 10 years – 20 years and realistically and hopefully will be with kids too, if they like golf.

Started off with a cracking course Portumna – massive journey to get to there, on the road I was thinking how mental it was, what Kevin did, some of these courses are in places you wouldn’t go to for any other reason. It really is a stunning little country and you never see most of it. The drive from Enniscrone to Carne is up with anything I have ever seen. Even when late and after about 15 pints. When you travel around Ireland you stick to main motorway routes, no option of motorway for so many courses.

Then from meeting people and playing on Boards’ Golf Society had a whirlwind of golf, just went with it, a no regrets sort of thing. Was very lucky to get invited out, play opens and even get a few freebies from lads on here – class stuff, actually The Forum at its best. Sometimes in life/work, you are always thinking about golf, or on a long drive or train journey looking for as long as possible at a passing course. For years I was thinking, am I the only one like this, but over the last year I've discovered I'm not. It is a peculiar small group of golfers, but you can smell them out after a few rounds.

As a young lad was always interested in who gets to play these great courses (“Lucky Bastards”) , would often hear of lads getting invited out on them, funny how things turn out in the end, if you just go for it. Take a chance. Thanks lads – ye know who ye are.

I know it is only golf, it is only a hobby, but some of my best days have been on a golf course, of course the best best days of your life are off a course, but the worst days of your life are never on a course. (lol - too many courses even when trying to talk about real life)

The Atlantic Coast Challenge and getting to play Strandhill again, was a great few days, had never gone away to play golf for a few days, was like a Stag of Links Golf. Highly recommend , but hard-core away from family work and real life too long.
There were a couple of courses that really surprised me, as I had heard so little about them - Royal Curragh / Douglas / Portumna / Carlow / Bearna / Enniscorthy /Galway Bay, not courses you hear lads talk about too much. Not just saying it, but found Kevin’s book excellent – if it was near or over 80 points in Hooked , I’d give it the green light.

But, I have an unusual taste in courses – I like courses that are naturally on the land and if woodland - natural woodland, The likes of The Heath and Royal Curragh would be a nice middle ground from Links to link me into Parkland courses – was also impressed with the way Carlow is shaped and has allowed longer grass to define course and used hills and contours naturally.

So if it is going to be a course like Roscrea or Thurles or courses in the general Irish parkland group – they have to be more like Tullamore or Carlow to impress me. But I love golf and you don’t need to be on a great course to have a fantastic day out, I wouldn't be fanatical about it, you hear lads saying “Kip” “Wouldn't play it”, madness. It is golf lads. You should rarely get stressed out about golf, never mind a course.

I played courses too that wouldn’t have a chance of making the top 100 – Corballis, Grange Castle, Deer Park, Portlaoise, Waterrock . All these courses always had good crowds and all have great holes and some are great/good courses. In fact there isn't a course in the country, I wouldn’t go back to, if the place, company and time was right. I was playing some of these courses as my friends are getting into golf and these courses are important as an introduction to golf for so many.

So, sorry for a little aside on/off topic. But that was my crazy year of 2014. Perhaps a mid-life post traumatic golf crisis – but hey, could have been much worse. 2015 will be back to normal, more club golf and pick a few more off the list. Becoming a full member and trying to get into weekend stuff more, maybe Interclub.

One thing that is for sure - going to all these old course, pictures on walls, old carpets and finish. You get a sense the golden era of golf is past. You see how important the golf club was, it was a social centre of some of the communities. I was concerned with how in decline golf was. How we may have lost a generation, how are all these clubs and way of life going to continue ?

So, thanks a million to all the lads who helped me out – “Some Speech” (:p)
As Shane Mcgowan says –“ Won’t see another one” (like it).

Fix (“Lucky Bastard”).

Kevinmarkham wrote: »

Conditioning is only a part of it. You know yourself that if fertilisers are added or the greens are pole-forked and then the weather doesn't behave it can cause all kinds of problems. And if the reviewer arrives on a good/bad condition day, then it affects results. Fortunately that's only one criterion in the assessment. But you make a very valid point about The Hermitage - it is no way 30 places better than Grange.

True, but I dont think you can rate a course based on one random visit, you should pick it at its best (end of summer) and "worst" end of winter and make a decision then.

I'd rate a course with year round full greens over one that moves to temps when its wet, regardless of the layout or anything else about the place.

I think condition has to be a huge part of it, Esker Hills had some nice holes but was a rough bog when I was there, I'd be very unlikely to back whereas macreddin, same time of year was much better.

Maybe I'm spoilt by the condition of my own course, but then, for me, surely that should be part of the ratings?

shabalala wrote: »

You are quite lucky Greebo, any time ive played at The Grange its been in lovely nick

Cheers, the lads have done great work over the last few years, capital projects coming to an end allowing them to spend more time on general upkeep.

I just don't think you can overlook poor condition for nice layout or brand.

Macreddin at 100 is a nonsense, I think its a better layout than Hermitage, but perhaps not kept to the same condition...so which is it?!

Can I just point out - in the interest of fairness - as they do on RTE etc, etc, there are OTHER golf courses available apart from those on this list

I'd love to see further lists eg 101 - 200 and so on.

They should just score all the clubs and leave it at that, not compare them to each other.
With a list of 100 that gets crazy, you could have 99 courses equal on 1000 points and then 1 course on 990 points and all of a sudden its 100th on a list.

Just score them, dont rank them imo.
At leas thtat way its a bit more transparent if you can see the score for each criteria.

I like this website -
http://www.top100golfcourses.co.uk/htmlsite/gbi.asp

Just not enough comments - this on a larger scale would neutralise out the issues raised above about timing condition .

I like that you can read the rationale of why people liked or disliked a courses.

Agree above, no point in Links on the same list with parkland, well is hard to be fair. Not the same thing at all the two types of golf. It is also very difficult to be subjective, if you love one type over another. I'd play Baltray and even Arklow before almost every parkland in the country. So I'm not much use for doing an assessment like this at all. I'm biased.

I love reading some of the comments - as somebody , a fairly experienced golfer who has played all over the world , will give Royal County Down or St. Andrews an awful review.

One thing about playing different courses that I found interesting, is it a good test of your game , do you improve as a golfer ? I never found out the answer to that. But by playing your home course all the time can you fool yourself that you are a say 5 or an 11 or whatever handicap ?

Another days question , but I did find courses that on them I would be a lower handicap and on others I'd struggle off 12 + . The Island is very tough for example, it would be years for me to get low there , the likes of Mount Juilet was much easier for example.

slave1 wrote: »

Totally of the belief you're a better player when you play not just more but also a variety of courses, I get bored very easily so always try to vary as much as possible. How someone can be happy playing the same course all their life is beyond me, oh wait...marriage analogy springs to mind

I'm not saying I'm right - but almost came to the conclusion that golfers sort of fool themselves playing the one course - for example there are 2 course I play the most, don't need a GPS a distance, anything , just know club, way ball will go on green etc.

Anyway - another debate in a way,