Best Golf Vacation in Ireland
Royal County Down, Royal Portrush, Ballybunion, Lahinch, Rosapenna, Portmarnock, Waterville, European Club, Old Head, Porstewart and County Louth
The Complete Irish Rover
For concentration of world class links courses Ireland is the only country that can rival Scotland. The Faraway Fairways Best Golf Vacation in Ireland does just that, scooping the ’emerald isle’ of her cream.
The Faraway Fairways Best Golf Vacation in Ireland begins in Dublin which is the hub from which both western and northern legs are launched. To help visualise it, think of a golf course playing two loops of nine. We’re lucky that the European Club (or Portmarnock if we adjust) are playable from the capital on the day of arrival but after that we head west, to pick up a trio of world-ranked courses at Lahinch, Waterville, and Ballybunion, the latter being the Irish Republic’s top-rated golf course.
This is rural Ireland at its most tranquil and beguiling, a sharp contrast to its troubled history
We aim to add a favourite with overseas visitors at Old Head before returning to Dublin to launch the second leg north, when we look to tackle the world top-5 rated masterpiece at Royal County Down, and Ireland’s only Open Championship venue at Portrush. The final swing is to pull in Rosapenna which now demands inclusion before we head back to Dublin in the knowledge that we’ve got the lot. We arrive on a Friday, so maybe we could permit ourselves an extra night! we’ll have earned it
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The Itinerary
Tuesday – European Club (Dublin)
Wednesday – Lahinch (Cliffs of Moher)
Thursday – Ballybunion
Friday – Waterville (Ring of Kerry)
Saturday – Old Head (Blarney Castle/ Cork)
Sunday – Portmarnock
Monday – Royal County Down
Tuesday – Royal Portrush
Wednesday –Portstewart (Giants Causeway)
Thursday – Rosapenna
Friday – County Louth
With 11 days consecutive golf we might welcome a rest day? We could start at Portmarnock on the Tues. This would release the Sunday for a non-golf day in Dublin, or if we wanted to make Saturday our Dublin day, we could move the European Club to Sunday, with the loss of Old Head. Either adjustment would work
Tuesday - European Club
The European Club is located in tumbling dunes south of Dublin and features sweeping sea views.
This is a complex but enjoyable examination for every golfer provided they use their brains. Those who learn how to flight the ball on a medium or low trajectory will enjoy the fast running fairways and the fact that provision has been made for the punched or running shot to fifteen of the greens. The shorter hitting ‘thinker’ can find a way to stay in the race against the big ball bruisers.
The course also features the longest green in the world at twelve, which measures 127-yards from front to back and restores the art of the great three-putt. Five holes run so close to the sea that it is quite common to find players searching for their golf balls on the beach.
In 2026 the European Club underwent a major renovation and reopened in the spring of 2027
Wednesday - Lahinch
The DNA of Old Tom Morris (1894), Dr Alistair Mackenzie (1927) and more recently Martin Hawtree (1999) runs through the design of Lahinch.
The course has a bit from each of them. Lahinch is rugged and hugely entertaining facing out onto the exposed Atlantic coast. The traditional out and back nine are located adjacent to the beach after MacKenzie had moved holes nearer to the shoreline. Perhaps the pick is the fifth, an eccentric relic from the Morris era that has survived. A blind par 3, played to a narrow hidden green surrounded by towering sandhills. Good luck!
It was perhaps only when Hawtree had finished restoring many of MacKenzie’s tricky green complexes that the course really moved onto the top tier though, where it has remained ever since, widely recognised as Ireland’s second best course behind Ballybunion and holding a good world ranking between 25 and 50.
In 2019 it hosted the Irish Open, won by Jon Rahm
Thursday - Ballybunion
Located on the north west coast of County Kerry, on the Atlantic coast of south west of Ireland, Ballybunion is usually regarded as the best links in the Republic, and typically ranks in the world’s top 20.
Beautifully contoured fairways that tumble through a blanket of grassy dunes lead you on a journey of rarely equalled bliss. The secret to Ballybunion seems to lie in accepting that nature has already done the design work, and all that was required were finishing touches.
It was probably Tom Watson’s eulogy from 1982 that made people really sit up though and begin to realise just what the Irish had at Ballybunion. “Nobody can call himself a golfer until he has played at Ballybunion; you would think the game originated there!”
Friday - Waterville
The earliest records of a formal golf course existing at Waterville dates to 1889, (Scottish workers laying Atlantic cables) but it was only in the 1970’s that it really began to reach its potential. Under the vision of “Jack” Mulcahy, a collaboration between Eddie Hackett, and Claude Harmon was forged to build the most testing golf links in the world.
The terrain was ideal, a peninsula of pristine links land jutting into an estuary on an arching sandy beach. Their new creation opened in 1973 to wide acclaim. The next step came with the four year ‘Fazio project’. This set out to harmonise the topography, particularly the less arresting inland sections, while enhancing the challenge and beauty.
Waterville continues to go from strength to strength as more people discover it. The late Payne Stewart in particular fell in love with it and has a statue on the course in his honour
Saturday - Old Head
Old Head Golf Links is built on a 220-acre diamond of land jutting out over two miles into the Atlantic Ocean. The promontory is almost an island with numerous caves running beneath your feet as you play the course.
It is a piece of golf real estate like no other, that causes many a golfer to pinch themselves as they drive with the crashing waves of the Atlantic Ocean some 300 feet below on both sides, with a vista framed by the iconic lighthouse that stands guard on the tip of the headland. The course is set up on a daily basis depending on the prevailing weather conditions.
It undoubtedly possesses nine stunning cliff-top holes, and these will be the ones that leave the impression on you. It’s the ‘other nine’ that seemingly prevents it from making the top-100 lists, but it nearly always makes an indelible impression on visiting overseas golfers who are invariably wowed by its spectacle and drama
Sunday - Portmarnock
With a rich history closely aligned to the progression of golf in Ireland, Portmarnock has hosted numerous Irish Open Championships, the Walker Cup, Irish Amateur Championships and the British Amateur Championship, and the rumour that it’s being lined up as the next course to be introduced to the Open rotation doesn’t look like dying down (we think this one has legs)
From Sam Snead to Seve Ballesteros, some of golf’s best-known names have tested their skills against this majestic narrow tongue of shallow dunes-land, just north of Dublin.
Considered by many as one of the fairest links courses in the world it delivers an incredible challenge and true test of golf.
Perhaps five-time Open Championship winner Tom Watson summed up the links best during his visits saying, “There are no tricks or nasty surprises, only an honest, albeit searching test of shot making skills.”
Monday - Royal County Down
Periodically Royal County Down can displace the likes of Pine Creek or Cyprus Point as the world’s highest rated golf course (its that good).
It is framed in one of the most stunningly natural links settings in golf. The Murlough Nature Reserve provides the stage, the magnificent Mourne mountains the backdrop. The narrowest ribbons of fairways thread their way through as impressive a set of sand dunes as could be imagined. The fairways are surrounded by purple heather and golden gorse, so beautiful to look at, but so punishing for any who may stray from the prescribed path. The ‘bearded’ bunkers are world famous, featuring overhanging lips of marram, red fescue and heather. The greens are fast and many are domed, rejecting any shot lacking conviction.
The ninth hole is one of the most photographed holes in world golf, a 486 yard par 4, it is played from one side of a huge mound down to a fairway some 60 ft below and 260 yards from the tee. From the bottom of the slope the second shot is played over two bunkers to a raised green.
Tuesday - Royal Portrush
Royal Portrush is constructed on an area of natural dune land framed by limestone cliffs. The Open was held here in 1951, and won by Max Faulkner. In 2019 it returned, Shane Lowry playing the elements best of all to prove a popular local(ish) winner, whilst Scottie Scheffler obliged in 2025 (note how quickly the R&A came back!)
The Dunluce Links is home to one of the most stunning par fours in golf, the 411 yard 5th hole. A dogleg hole played from an elevated tee towards the ocean, it rewards the daring shot across a wide expanse of rough. An overly long approach shot will end up on the sand of the White Rocks beach which lies just beyond the rear of the green however. Carnage!
Calamity Corner, the 210 yard par 3 16th hole is the other feature hole. Between the tee and the green is a yawning chasm, which must be cleared to stand any chance of making your three. This is a score wrecker coming at a decisive moment in the round.
Wednesday - Portstewart
On a coastline famed for its giants, Portstewart’s Strand Course is ‘the sleeping one’, erroneously overlooked alongside the two Ulster Royals of Portrush and County Down.
It was the brainchild of Willie Park Jr and Des Giffin, who used the natural gifted undulating dunes, the run off bunkers, rolling fairways and tricky manicured greens to create a course that stands in similar company.
A ‘true test of golf’ is a much overused phrase, but in this case it is a reflection of the variety and ingenuity of the shots required to get round this masterpiece of a golf course. The views from almost every hole are quite simply, magical. The Atlantic is never very far away and the beauty of the course has to be seen to be believed. It is a treat that will take a very long time, to fade from the golfers memory.
The Strand Course hosted the 2017 Irish Open. Jon Rahm won but the links left an impression on him, “the golf course is amazing. It’s probably one of the most beautiful golf courses I have ever seen, if not the most”.
Thursday - Rosapenna
Rosapenna, and the recently renovated St Patricks course suddenly leapt up the rankings from seemingly nowhere to rank behind Ballybunion and Lahinch, vying with Portmarnock (and overtaking it on some lists) for third place. Why? Well the answer is Tom Doak and completely new design
The St Patrick’s Links is routed in an adjoining dune system just south of the existing two courses at Rosapenna. Doak has fashioned 18 unrecognisable and unforgettable holes over the same tract of land. The result? A sprawling links that is destined to become a modern great and one which is drawing comparison with Barnbougle Dunes.
It sits on the most magnificent piece of links land – huge scale and scenery, with enough variety in dimension to present a real diversity of golf holes. The routing takes golfers on a journey through huge dunes, to high above Sheephaven Bay, along the coast, then back over some more gentle dunes… and that’s just the front nine! With plenty of width and an eclectic mix of naturalised bunkers, the course is unlike anything in the UK & Ireland.
Friday - County Louth
More affectionately known as ‘Baltray’, County Louth is a links course of the highest pedigree. With a spectacular layout it regularly ranks in top 10 courses in Ireland
The championship links are known for providing one of the purest and fairest tests of links golf in the world. For professional golfer and former Ryder Cup Captain Paul McGinley, this is his favourite links course in Ireland, remarking: “It’s just a great test. All the holes run in different directions, so you have a different exam paper on each hole”.
In 2004 and 2009 County Louth Golf Club hosted the European Tour’s Irish Open. On the latter occasion, the club was etched into Irish golfing history when it famously became the venue where 2019 Open Champion Shane Lowry won the Irish Open as an Amateur.
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Do I put something about video in here?
What's Involved?
We might legitimately call this the Best Golf Vacation in Ireland, as we have indeed got a full ‘keep net’ of big fish, but we’ll have to have worked hard for it. At approximately 31 hrs on the road at an average of just below 3 hrs a day, this is a demanding schedule (luckily 5 hrs of golf does help break this up) so the working average is closer to 90 mins there and back
The Best Golf Vacation in Ireland, is really two itineraries spliced together. One to the west, and the other to the north. Dublin serves as a hub from which both legs are launched and return to
We might decide that 11 days of consecutive play is too much, and choose to introduce a break day in the middle. The logical place to do so is Dublin as this is the pivot out of which will travel. We could start at Portmarnock on Tuesday and simply choose to omit the European Club, replacing it with Dublin on Sunday. This works quite well for spacing, but we might prefer to try and manipulate things so that Saturday becomes our day off? To achieve this however, we’d likely have to lose Old Head. Instead of driving over to Cork from Tralee, we’d head back to Dublin on Saturday morning, arriving around lunchtime.
The Best Golf Vacation in Ireland is laid out as an eleven night duration that observes a point-to-point itinerary, staying at:
- Dublin – 1 night
- Limerick – 1 night
- Tralee – 2 nights
- Cork – 1 night
- Portmarnock – 1 + 1 nights
- Newcastle (County Down) – 1 night
- Portrush – 1 night
- Rosapenna – 2 nights
There would be a quite persuasive argument in favour of trimming this down to 10 rounds of golf and dropping one so as to introduce a dedicated Dublin non-golf day
The Best Golf Vacation in Ireland is very much the archetypal point-to-point tour as we seek to try and establish a pattern of play in the morning and travel in the afternoon for the next destination to set up another morning round the following day (where this is possible)
This is a very high mileage tour and relatively high intensity, although we’ll also have extended periods driving on lower density roads in the rural west
We estimate a total of 1250 miles and approximately 31 hrs 30 mins, which is an average of about 2hrs 55 mins each day
We wouldn’t advise or encourage anyone to attempt this using a hired driver. Not only will this become expensive, it could leave us horribly exposed in the event of a failure
The Best Golf Vacation in Ireland can support Luxury, Premier and Affordable options, although the luxury options could involve stretching a little bit as we have stay a little bit further away from our area of focus to achieve it. Given the mileage already involved, this needn’t be a sensible decision
In most cases the Best Golf Vacation in Ireland is probably defined by the average travel class of the stay which is what we’d categorise as ‘premier’
As ever, the scale of non-golf activity depends on whether we’re adding extra value for golfers, or building a stand alone proposal for non-golfers to run alongside a golf programme.
The Best Golf Vacation in Ireland is already demanding without adding too much non-golf activity to the agenda. We would advise that you give serious consideration to omitting non-golf activity and only look to include that where we are staying at, that which is in very close proximity, or that which is pretty much on a line of travel
Candidate would include
- Dublin with (Portmarnock or the European Club)
- The Ring of Kerry (part of the drive to Waterville)
- The Giants Causeway (15 mins from Portrush or Portstewart)
- Cliffs of Moher (15 mins from Lahinch – but after a long drive from Dublin we might choose to head straight to Limerick)
- Cork (where we’ll stay to play Old Head)
- Battle of the Boyne (line of travel to RCD or returning via County Louth)
If we have independent driving non-golfers in the party however, then they can begin to expand their horizons and make us of places like Glendalough, Killarney, Dingle, Belfast, and Carrick u Rede
The following courses operate the following handicap thresholds for gentlemen and ladies respectively
- Royal Portrush (18 & 24)
- Royal County Down (24 & 36)
- Ballybunion (24 & 36)
- Lahinch (24 & 36)
- Portmarnock (24 & 36)
- Old Head (24 & 36)
Ballybunion doesn’t permit visitor play at weekends or afternoons
Lahinch doesn’t permit visitor play at weekends
Portmarnock only permits visitor play on Mon, Tues, Thurs and Sun afternoons
Portrush doesn’t permit visitor play on Weds, nor Sat or Sun mornings. Their week day play is a mixture of full and half days. Tues and Thurs are full days. Mon is afternoon only, and Friday is mornings only. In order to play the Dunluce links off a morning tee-time, Portrush now require that we play a second round on their Valley course over two days. It maybe necessary to replace Portstewart under this regulation if the booking has been left a little bit later and the less restricted afternoon times have all been taken
RCD doesn’t permit visitor play on Weds or Sat, or Sun morning. They also operate a mixture of half days and full days for weekdays. Mon, Tues, and Fri are full days
Portstewart doesn’t permit visitor morning play at weekends
The Rosapenna resort hotel is the logical place to use, but they require a two night minimum stay. This means playing Portstewart and moving on the same day to establish our first night
Whereas golf tour operators enjoy favourable arrangements with a lot of courses, one which represents a risk to any assembly in which they feature is RCD.
RCD open their diary for play the following season in February and will sell out in 36 hrs. If we’re late to the party, we’ll be most unlikely to play there. This means that we need to operate on a long-lead time.
This isn’t the only issue we face there however
RCD sell their tee-times on one hectic day by phone. This involves hitting ‘last number redial’ over and over again in the hope of landing on their limited by number call stacking system. Very often we have to spend hours and hours meeting the engaged tone.
Faraway Fairways have nearly always succeeded in getting tee-times at RCD (eventually) but we’ve had too many near misses to know that we’ll fail again in the future.
There is a known risk in this process, and whereas clients are always welcome to roll the dice themselves and see if they can get lucky alongside our efforts (can always be worth trying), but we’ve never had anyone succeed where ahead of Fairways Fairways yet
Testimonial
From BB Canada
“I told Alun the courses I was interested in playing and he prepared a stay and play package with 14 days of outstanding golf, but also tremendous site seeing opportunities for my wife.”
From JC Illinois
“His attention to detail is amazing--I think our travel plan booklet ran to forty-eight pages, with gorgeous descriptions of cities and sights, plus maps showing where to go to catch trains, or walk from trains to hotels, sights and golf courses, etc.”
From DF Alabama
“I will cherish the memories for a long time- especially the wonderful times spent on and off the golf course with two of my brothers and brother-in-law. None of the memories and golf would have been possible or enjoyed without your tremendous planning and logistical support.”
AS from Colorado
“Alun and Faraway Fairways created possibly the most memorable golf trip we have ever experienced. EPIC is the only word that comes to mind.”
AC, From Florida/ New York, 2025
“We were hopeful to secure a 4 ball at St. Andrews while avoiding the massive expense other operators had quoted. He was very clear about the plan for achieving a tee time at the Old Course through the ballot, including detailed instruction on how it could be done, and what our odds were. He suggested mid- to late April as the best chance of success and advised that this is also the least rainy part of the year. We took his advice and trusted the process. Well, he was right on all counts!”
From SB, Minnesota
“We wholeheartedly recommend Alun and Faraway Fairways if you’re looking for a golf trip that is effortless, enjoyable, and truly unforgettable—even for a non-golfer in the mix! My husband and I will be daydreaming about this trip for years to come. 5.5 stars!”
From JB, California
“The best part was that the service was surprisingly affordable. They were thousands of dollars below other quotes that I received, in fact the prices were very similar to what I would have paid if I would have booked everything on my own.”
From JCA, Maryland
“I would and will highly recommend your company to anyone looking to plan an unforgettable golf trip. Thank You for putting together a fantastic trip for J.C. and me”
From WF Connecticut
“I think all eight of us would agree that Alun at Faraway Fairways did an absolutely wonderful job of putting this “golf vacation of a lifetime” together for us. His focus on the details was extraordinary from the choice of courses and the timing of the tee times, the amazingly beautiful accommodations along with some excellent meal selections, and the transportation options he provided to get us from place to place.”
From DR South Carolina
“You are about to tee it up in your Major. Seek wisdom, integrity and professionalism. Alun Davies and Faraway Fairways will not disappoint you. They cannot assure a calm sunny day with temperatures in the 70’s on the Old Course.”
From MM, California
“One fantastic trip you organized, and more importantly took ownership of in terms of daily communication and stewardship during our 2+ weeks in Scotland and Ireland. The logistics were spotless…100% of the transports were on time and excellent, the lodging choices spectacular and the golf was off the charts in terms of quality and arrangements made”
DH from California
“You cannot go wrong with the support Faraway Fairways offered. I did this trip solo and all last minute but I have already begun to plan the next trip which will include my best golfing buddies.”