Do I put something about video in here?
A strict Northern Ireland golf vacation is largely going to involve running along the Antrim Coast, with the exception of Royal County Down which lies to south. This means the middle section can adopt a daily back-to-base operating out of Portrush, whilst a significant amount of the mileage is generated getting there and back from Dublin. There would reach a point however where a second base would be needed if we continued to push further and further west.
The decision as to whether we fly to Dublin, or London that would allow us to transfer to Belfast on a hopper flight probably frames what a final Royal County Down, Royal Portrush, and Northern Ireland Golf Vacation would look like.
If we used Belfast, we’d lose Portmarnock and County Louth, but would be able to go deeper into the exploration of the North. There’d be an argument in favour of removing Castlerock and looking to introduce, Nairn & Portnoo, County Sligo and Enniscrone. On balance this would probably weaken the golf, but strengthen the ‘Irish experience’
The Royal County Down, Royal Portrush, and Northern Ireland Golf Vacation is laid out as an eight night duration that observes something of an out and back transfer from Dublin before adopting a daily back-to-base model, staying at:
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
This is a medium mileage tour and medium to low intensity.
We estimate a total of 500 miles, although 200 of this would be the result of getting between Dublin and Belfast
We estimate the approximate road time to be 14 hrs 15 mins, which is an average of about 1hr 45 mins each day. Worth noting perhaps is that 4 hrs of this road time would be two runs between Dublin and Belfast
We don’t normally encourage people to use hired drivers in Northern Ireland, the cost is surprisingly expensive for what is normally considered a lower value economy, but with Portmarnock, RCD, and Rosapenna being walk out (or walk in) to play courses, and a number of others (Portstewart, and Portrush) being local, there is more scope to do so perhaps than we normally see
Royal County Down, Royal Portrush, and Northern Ireland Golf Vacation can support Luxury, Premier and Affordable options. The trip is probably defined by the average travel class of the stay however, 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.
Unlike west Ireland , the Royal County Down, Royal Portrush, and Northern Ireland Golf Vacation, has a more clustered non-golf offer. It’s probably a better one too. The destinations are much closer to the golf courses, which means golfers can add them more easily or non-golfers can build a fairly credible tour regardless of any playing
If we fly into Dublin rather than Belfast, then we should perhaps consider coming in 24 hrs earlier to create a non-golf Saturday in the Irish capital. That would be a good value choice
The drive between Portmarnock and RCD will take us past the Battle of the Boyne, which is worth including
The Antrim Coast offers use the Giants Causeway, The Carrick u Rede Ropebridge, Dunluce Castle, and if you have any knowledge / interest in ‘A Game of Thrones’ a place known in the series as ‘The Dark Hedges’
Belfast’s offer tends to be darker. The city’s cab drivers run very interesting tours of the ‘divided communities’ taking you right up to the chalk face of the recent troubled past. The city also has the ‘Titanic Centre’ (the ill fated liner was built in Belfast)
We start to struggle a bit as we go west to Rosapenna, but if we went beyond this point into Donegal and Sligo we’d start to encounter something closer to the quintessential rural Ireland again immortalised in verse by WB Yeats
The following courses operate the following handicap thresholds for gentlemen and ladies respectively
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
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
Portmarnock only permits visitor play on Mon, Tues, Thurs and Sun afternoons
Portstewart doesn’t permit visitor morning play at weekends
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