Lough Erne "Challenge"

JCDUB

Am heading up to this challenge on Wednesday, McIlroy Vs Harrington, can't wait, should be great craic!Anybody heading up?

Just to make you a little more jealous, I'm staying up there on Wed night and playing the course on Thursday:D:D

Heard great things about it, I'll let you all know how it is by the weekend.
Anybody heard anything about it or played it?

jimjo

I'm dying to play the course. Drove up around it on Saturday, and it looks great, absolutely fantastic from the little I saw. Mind you Castle Hume looks nice up there too, both courses right beside each other.

Heard great things about the course and its not all just hype, as you get with any new course opening up. There’s even talk about holding the British Masters there next year which would be something else.

I already called them to see if there are any open days, but I got a swift ‘no’!!! The joining fee is £30,000 and than £1,500 on top each year. At £90 a round in the middle of an unpopulated part of Ireland, 2 hours 30mins from Dublin, 1 hour 30mins from Belfast, I bet by the end of the year when the honeymoon period nears an end there will be some type of deal going. You see the counties around are heavy hit by the recession, more so than other counties believe it or not. Take the county its set in for example, Fermanagh, the major employer Sean Quinn, heavily involved in the construction sector, cement, brick, glass, insurance etc, a lot of his employees are on 3 day weeks, some already let go and maybe and possibly more to follow suit.

The point I’m getting at is I see the golf course as unsustainable, maybe if it was closer to a major city and opened a few years back…. The Slieve Russell is not far away and that’s a damn good course, from what I can gather their membership base isn’t the largest and they are very reasonable for an established championship course i.e. no joining fee, something like 1250 euro a year. Don’t get me wrong I really want the course to succeed and it’s a major asset to a county like Fermanagh but its difficult to see it really doing well in hard economic times, to put it simply people are not going to shell out £90/100 euro a round.

Hope you get on well and enjoy, please report back, really interested in the course.

irishtoffee

Is it on Tv?

Blunder

I've two tickets but I dont think I'll head over. 3,000 - 4,000 people following the one group is going to be a bit mental and the chances of a good vantage. I might head over near the end and get a good position on one of the holes.

Enjoy the round on Thursday. It is a fantastic course and one of the most enjoyable rounds of golf you will play. As for the membership, I wouldn't hold out much hope of a drop of prices. AFAIK there is a potential limited membership of around 100 places (which I think are nearly taken up). This course has always kinda been sold as a short Helicopter ride from Portrush/Belfast as opposed to 5 miles from Enniskillen and has completely detached itself from the Castle Hume course which is on the same estate.

Its kind of a case of the membership coming to them as opposed to them trying to sell it and I dont think that will change in the short to medium term.

pd101

So who won?

WaldenByThoreua

pd101 wrote: »

So who won?

rory

Aidric

limerickmunster wrote: »

rory

Hardly a surprise.

deko43

irishtoffee wrote: »

Is it on Tv?

Lough Erne challange on Sky tomorrow ( Tuesday) night.
7pm and 9pm.

soundsham

just spotted this
ty

Adiaga 2

Watched this last night, the course looked great. Not a beast in terms of length like most new big money developments. There seemed to be a fair few par 4s under 400yds. In terms of the match, it looked like Rory could have won by ten if he holed a few putts. Padraig missed a lot of greens(as bourne out in his tour stats this year) and holed a lot of putts to keep the deficit respectable.

jimjo

I walked the first nine holes today, and although from what I saw there maybe some holes under the 400 yard mark, the first for example, however if you go right at all your out of bounds. The 17th hole is only 357 yards of the pro tee’s but again it’s such a tight drive, go right and your in the water, hit a good drive and your in the bunker, and the approach shots looks difficult even if your on the fairway!! Slopey fairways, meaning you don’t always get an easy lie. Bunkers are everywhere, and by the looks of it you could be really stung in them. Greens on some of the holes are surprisingly small and so well guarded by dangerous looking bunkers you’d be scratching you head on what’s the best plan of attack. Steep contours on all of the greens, holes are tight and the wind would play a big part on holes 6,7 & 8 (6th & 8th looked particularly difficult, that may have been due to the strong wind also). Throw in the 7167 yards off the back tees so I wouldn’t say its that short! Took some photos on my phone but wouldn’t insult the course by posting them due to my crappy poor phone camera quality!

The course looks amazing, best I’ve ever seen, in terms of lay out and awe factor. Cant wait to play. To top it all off there’s a statue of ‘Sir Nick’ by the club house. I wonder how many drunken late night wedding goers have watered that statue….

I can only imagine this will soon be one of the top rated parkland courses in the country; simply put the place looks top notch.

thoscon

i played it in september.cracking course.

jimjo

thoscon wrote: »

i played it in september.cracking course.

Would you say its up there in terms of top courses you played?? I would imagine it would have to be, although I only walked the first nine I cant see the second nine which is shorter according to the scorecard being anyways bad, certainly not the 17th or 18th which are beside the clubhouse. With the Lough in the background it looks really scenic and the kind of evaluated tee boxes by the water they look exciting holes to tee off from.

The only problem I can’t see people form Kildare/south Dublin travelling up, it’s a long way up.

GreeBo

I walked it about 2 months ago and it looked like a very nice course.
Unfortunately for the owners I only saw 1 other group actually playing on it on a Friday afternoon in the middle of summer.

Food is top notch and the hotel is very nice also.
Thai massage will either fix you or break you more.

JCDUB

Yeah I have to say it was excellent in every way.
Fairways superb, great greens, and some fabulous course design.

Incredible views around the turn aswell, the 9th, 12th (I think) and a few others in particular.
It is set up with a lot of water to the right hand side of the holes, due to the lakes on either side of the course and the layout of the course. So it's a bit trickier for the slicer/fader of the ball, but all round brilliant course.

Well worth a visit, and I would rate it up there with the top courses I've played in Ireland.

thoscon

jimjo wrote: »

Would you say its up there in terms of top courses you played?? I would imagine it would have to be, although I only walked the first nine I cant see the second nine which is shorter according to the scorecard being anyways bad, certainly not the 17th or 18th which are beside the clubhouse. With the Lough in the background it looks really scenic and the kind of evaluated tee boxes by the water they look exciting holes to tee off from.

The only problem I can’t see people form Kildare/south Dublin travelling up, it’s a long way up.

its defo one of the best courses ive played.we were down in the slieve russell for the weekend and played it sat and slieve russell on the sunday.
we played off the blue tees which made it tougher for me.
the back 9 was just as good.the 2 par 5s 14 & 16 are excellent holes

the 10th was the highlight of my round 321 downhill water all down the right and surrounding 2/3 of the green.got a great kick on the 2nd tier of fairway with my drive and ended up 5yds short of the green, chipped it stone dead for a biride.
it wasnt that busy for a sat morning which doesnt bode too well

jimjo

thoscon wrote: »

its defo one of the best courses ive played.we were down in the slieve russell for the weekend and played it sat and slieve russell on the sunday.
we played off the blue tees which made it tougher for me.
the back 9 was just as good.the 2 par 5s 14 & 16 are excellent holes

the 10th was the highlight of my round 321 downhill water all down the right and surrounding 2/3 of the green.got a great kick on the 2nd tier of fairway with my drive and ended up 5yds short of the green, chipped it stone dead for a biride.
it wasnt that busy for a sat morning which doesnt bode too well

Bloody hell, the Slieve Russell than Lough Erne by god you can pick them! If you came down to that neck of the woods in a week or so the new Jeff Howes course in the Farnham estate is going to be fully open.

On Sunday at 1 o clock there was not a soul or a sinner on the front 9, and from a distance I could see maybe 15-20 on the back 9 but couldn't be sure, however there wasn't many.

By the way what’s the story with all the tee box’s in Lough Erne, there’s about 5 of them! Here’s what I thought (mightn’t have the exact colours spot on)….

Black’s – Pro’s
Blue’s – Medal Competitions
White’s – Normal Competitions
Green’s – Society
Red – Ladies/Juveniles

thoscon

jimjo wrote: »

Bloody hell, the Slieve Russell than Lough Erne by god you can pick them! If you came down to that neck of the woods in a week or so the new Jeff Howes course in the Farnham estate is going to be fully open.

On Sunday at 1 o clock there was not a soul or a sinner on the front 9, and from a distance I could see maybe 15-20 on the back 9 but couldn't be sure, however there wasn't many.

By the way what’s the story with all the tee box’s in Lough Erne, there’s about 5 of them! Here’s what I thought (mightn’t have the exact colours spot on)….

Black’s – Pro’s
Blue’s – Medal Competitions
White’s – Normal Competitions
Green’s – Society
Red – Ladies/Juveniles

we deal with quinn cement at work and get a free weekend in the slieve russell with a round of golf every year so decided to make the most of it and go to lough erne aswell
playing the slieve russell this sat.€99 per person b&b and a round of golf.meself and the brother in law golfing and the woman xmas shopping in enniskillen so everyones a winner:D
gonna try the farnham estate after xmas maybe.
couldnt get over all the tee boxes, the concierge who brought us down to the 1st tee told us to play the blues for a good challenge,was a bit hungover so never thought of asking what each tee was for.
theyll have to bring down the green fees £100 very dear in the current climate