The Full Irish: Ardglass Golf Club
The Full Irish: Ardglass Golf Club
On our second day of The Full Irish, we woke up in Malahide, had ourselves a breakfast (was it a Full Irish? Who can say?) and headed north. Our first stop and our round for the day is Ardglass Golf Club.
Founded: 1870, second nine holes added in 1970
Ratings:
Top100GolfCourses: 8 (Northern Ireland)
The Irish Golfer: 46 (Ireland)
Ardglass isn’t a name brand course in the way that Portmarnock is, or its relatively close neighbor Royal County Down. Like many Americans, I first heard about Ardglass when I read A Course Called Ireland by Tom Coyne, a book that inspired this trip and shed a light on many courses in our itinerary, including spots like Ardglass he adores that aren’t as popular as many others.
Interestingly, many local Irish golfers think Ardglass is quite overrated - many I talked to suggested it’s over priced for what it is, and I can’t speak to that as I’m not trying to play it as an every day course. This is also somewhat reflected in the ratings above. But, I still really wanted to play it. It just looked so fun, and Coyne raves about it - he never argues it’s the same class as RCD or Portrush or Ballybunion, but when he talks about holes hanging off the edge of a cliff, or the 14th century clubhouse, I was super intrigued.
We drove over two hours from Malahide to get there, with a mid-afternoon tee time. This was also the first time I really experienced very narrow roads, and I believe I instinctively yelled “I DID NOT LIKE THAT” on sharp turns with a car passing me at what seemed like light speed. After our first round at Portmarnock, we were hoping to shake the rust off and have a fun round before tomorrow at Royal County Down. With a stern test off the plane in Portmarnock, sandwiching in what I hoped was lighter fare before RCD was the plan. (The original plan to be fair was to play County Louth (Baltray) but it wasn’t to be.)
Our biggest takeaway from Ardglass was that the locals who talk smack about the course are just hipsters. It’s … incredible. Is it the most strategic course ever? No. Is it as challenging as some of the others we are playing? No. But just look at the first tee shot above. Even better, let’s watch Second Rob on the tee.
Is it one of the most scenic courses I have ever played? Is it full of fun shots and holes (it’s a short par-4 FIESTA), and we simply kept waiting for the bad holes to arrive.
Like I did at Portmarnock, I made par on the first two holes and then absolutely did NOT make par on #3. Still, I played fairly well overall and was beating Rob fairly soundly in our match (after doing the same at Portmarnock) until he drew us to a draw on the final hole. Ardglass is on a small piece of property and has some true gems - like we would see in later courses, the 13th tee hits over the 12th green. Also, one long par-3 on the front has this house right next to it, which Thunder may or may not have hit on his approach after a wayward tee shot.
Ardglass is very connected to the water, something I truly appreciate, and in the distance is a lighthouse you can see from a bunch of holes. It’s a really nice walk and a course I think I’d enjoy playing frequently if I lived nearby.
We ended up having dinner and drinks at the club - the chef there is tremendous and they pour a mean Guinness, so it was a no-brainer.
We drove back to our hotel - the Slieve Donard, which is WAY tonier and expensive than I had booked, but that morning I’d called our original hotel to see if we could drop off our luggage early and found out that they’d mistakenly booked us for the following weekend. We could simply not find anyone with space until I reluctantly tried the Slieve Donard, and managed to get us rooms for about 40% of the rate I’d seen online. And listen, if you have to make alternate plans at the last minute, you could do a LOT worse than this spot.
We had more than our fair share of drinks at the hotel bar, and called it a night. The next day, just a few steps away, lay Royal County Down.