PGA National Course Palmerstown

Famous45

Has anyone any experience of playing here? Any advice welcomed

ShriekingSheet

Famous45 wrote: »

Has anyone any experience of playing here? Any advice welcomed

If you type it into the search bar there's lots of discussion on it from various threads on the board here. It's a great setup. Course is brilliant, though not quite up there with K Club and DG in my opinion. Awesome facilities. Arrive early and take it all in.

Mister Sifter

Played it a few weeks back and i thought it was fantastic. Greens had been cored back then but that apart, the course was just a joy to play. I probbaly preferred it to the K Club and actually found it to be a tougher test.

You can't possibly not enjoy it. As Sheet says, turn up early and just enjoy.

Danow247

Playing this tomorrow. Cant wait. Looks great on the website.

kenco

Great course, one of the best in the country in my view

Long though with lots of sand and lots of water!

karlyk1

Drainage is very poor, so in the winter months it's not worth the money to play. However, in dry weather and Spring/Summer in general, it's one of the top courses in the country, easily! PLENTY of lakes and water, so bring a stack of balls. You will certainly enjoy the course and facilities.

ThunderCat

check this out - should help

http://www.top100golfcourses.co.uk/htmlsite/productdetails.asp?id=350

irishtoffee

My uncle played it in march and he said it was the best course he ever played.

Alzar

1st time playing there this saturday, with the pub society. Looking forward to it.

Al.

madds

Playing the K-Club tomorrow as practice for the Metro.....and then onto the PGA National on Wednesday as part of a FF fundraiser junket, although I have to attend a drinks reception & banquet afterwards...I might invite George Lee along for a game

Famous45

Cheers for the links and info guys, going to pop down for a round tomorrow.

madds

Thought I'd just post my thoughts on this place after playing it on Wednesday. We were playing in a team event with 2 scores to count on each hole. It was a shotgun start and our first hole was the 15th. Unfortunately we were playing off the "Bronze" markers which are the front ones which really shortened the course.

Overall I liked the design of the course. Some good bunkering and I'm sure we would have found it more difficult if we had played off the Silver tees.

My main gripe with the place was there was very little growth & grass on both the fairways and greens. The Left, Clean, & Drop rule was being enforced in the rough and on several occasions I found myself dropping onto very poor ground - a mixture of hard mud with spots of moss.

The greens had no give in them. When any of our group nipped a pitch from short of the green the ball very rarely checked up, it just seemed to run forever.

A nicely designed course, but because of the growth issues, I'd take Luttrellstown or the Palmer course any day.

PhilipMarlowe

Digging up this old thread because I played here on Friday. Similarly to madds, I had a shotgun start, off the bronze and I started on 14... cue nice drive and 2nd shot of 230 yards, all over water... or not
The place is very manicured and really pretty... fairways were very nice and tight but the bronze tees made it way too short.. I played with 3 non-golfers so the day was a laugh anyway but I would like to play it with some mates to get a real test going.
The greens were decent... some evidence of being forked recently but not too bad... nice contours but not overly fast. The rough is light (could do with some fertiliser too, a bit yellow) but there is so much water around that you wouldn't want difficult rough.

Overall the place didn't give me the same buzz that Mount Juliet would... but I'd be certainly looking forward to my next time out there
€160 is their published rate for a Friday & Saturday and when I went back to collect the car on Saturday mid-morning the place was almost deserted... if they still do their Monday open for 60 bucks or you can make them an offer then go and treat yourself!

Famous45

Made a post on another thread referring to Headfort New course in Kells, I played it last week and I have to rate it higher than the PGA National, we played for €30. Fantastic fairways, beautiful layout all round fabulous course.

jimjo

Licksy wrote: »

Overall the place didn't give me the same buzz that Mount Juliet would... but I'd be certainly looking forward to my next time out there
€160 is their published rate for a Friday & Saturday and when I went back to collect the car on Saturday mid-morning the place was almost deserted... if they still do their Monday open for 60 bucks or you can make them an offer then go and treat yourself!

I spoke about this in a previous thread, I played the PGA National about a month ago now, treated myself in one of those Monday opens - 60 bucks.

Got there early to soak up all the surroundings, absolutely beautiful place no doubt about it. Used the putting green, bit of chipping out of the practice bunkers, hit a few practise balls, when in Rome and all that! Did well on the front 9, had something like 18/19 points, fell apart on the back 9, found it tough going. Within saying that the fairways are more than generous for a championship course, was expecting a little tighter.

However it just didn’t live up to my expectations, maybe and this could quite possibly be true was that I was expecting far too much of the course. It is terrific, but I was just looking for that little bit extra, I really think in this country we have superb courses that are not often spoken about, the Slieve Russell being an obvious example.

Best advise to anyone is to play the PGA National and not have silly expectations like I did. I think those expectations were mainly due to the normal green fees 140 Tue – Thur and 160 Fri – Sat, that’s just craziness and whoever pays that money obviously has more money than sense!!!

PhilipMarlowe

Yes, I was making the point that it's a lovely place... a little tacky and manufactured but a fine experience but no way is it €100+ worth And how busy they seemed to be said that you'd be mad to pay those published rates... for €60 it's good value but of course there are many fine courses out there that charge less.
Lately I have being loving more natural golf from the likes of Carlow etc.... nice patches of ground rather than picture perfectness!

jimjo

Licksy wrote: »

Yes, I was making the point that it's a lovely place... a little tacky and manufactured but a fine experience but no way is it €100+ worth And how busy they seemed to be said that you'd be mad to pay those published rates... for €60 it's good value but of course there are many fine courses out there that charge less.
Lately I have being loving more natural golf from the likes of Carlow etc.... nice patches of ground rather than picture perfectness!

Well the Monday I played it was very quite but I shouldn’t read too much into it as it was a Monday and there generally quite days on golf courses all over the country….

I’m intrigued by Carlow, hear some many good reports on the course, is it that good? Really want to get down and see for myself. They don’t seem to have that many opens http://www.brsgolf.com/carlow/opens.php and when they do there midweek which is difficult for myself to get down….

tamloc

Quite simply "The best Parkland in the country". K club, Mt Juliet, Adare Manor, Carton House ect dont come close. Must play in the summer though. How an Irish open has not been played here amaze's me. Tralee has to be the best links imo.