The Full Irish: Lahinch Golf Club
The Full Irish: Lahinch Golf Club
"We have to go back."
The original plan was for us to play Lahinch Golf Club in between Carne and Ballybunion (and man, if I hadn’t already known what a gross, special and disgusting trip this is, that sentence would seal it). But as I’ve noted in other spots, it turns out that though Lahinch took our request for that date down, the course wasn’t actually open for visitors then, allowing a few weeks of member only play. So after playing Waterville on the tip of the Ring of Kerry, we drove three hours north in order to play Lahinch the following day.
Even still, we couldn’t get out until the early afternoon, which allowed for some sightseeing and a leisurely morning, something we absolutely wanted and needed. It was also Third Rob, aka Big Bob’s last round of the trip, so we wanted to make it special. We woke up and had some breakfast, then headed out to see the Cliffs of Moher.
Dean and I then tried to grab lunch in Doolin, but everyone was still serving breakfast there, so we just headed out to Lahinch Golf Club.
Like many other courses in this trip, I learned about it first from No Laying Up, and then watched Jon Rahm win the 2019 Irish Open here. The holes everyone thinks about are the 4th (Klondyke) and 5th (Dell) holes, both of which have massive dune hills that effectively block out the green from where you need to take your shot. Indeed, the whole course has a ton of blind shots.
(That guy in the screenshot above? That is the caddie named Huey who was in the group right behind us.)
I’d probably been thinking about my second shot on Klondyke and the tee shot on the Dell for roughly two years, which usually can’t lead to anything good. And yet, I had a makeable birdie putt on the Klondyke (fine, I missed it), and scraped together a solid bogey on the Dell.
Before we left on this epic trip, I kept telling myself and my tripmates that the First Rule of the Full Irish is HAVE FUN. The Second Rule? HAVE FUN. The Third Rule was, if it’s your first night, you have to fight. Wait … it’s also HAVE FUN. So that was my mantra here as well, because when you hype something up, it’s almost impossible for it to live up to expectations. I mention this because this is the amazing 6th green, a hole I absolutely flatlined on, and which caused me to not have my best round in Ireland.
Remember how I said the greens at Waterville weren’t necessarily that interesting or complex? Look at THAT green and there’s the difference.
While my maxim of not worrying about how well you are playing is and will always be true … I did play well. Dean and I had yet another epic match, which I won by my fifth par of the day falling in after hanging on the edge of the cup for a crazy amount of time.
It’s worth shouting out our caddie, Peter, who absolutely showed us the way on so many holes and talked both of us out of poor club choices when it mattered. Good caddies matter so much, and Peter is not just a good caddie but a great one.
Lahinch also included both Dean and AC in the same bunker, and both getting out - which at least for AC was truly heroic.
After the round, we left Lahinch and headed to Adare - not to go to the ritzy Manor, but the town of Adare as it positioned us well for our morning round as well as for Big Bob’s shuttle to the airport at the crack of dawn. On recommendation from Tom Kennedy of Experience Ireland, we sought out Pat Collins Pub for, reportedly, the best burger in Ireland - as well as Bill Chawke’s for the craic. Sadly, both pubs were fairly dead, and by the time we really realized it, we realized we too were running on fumes. Sometimes that’s not the worst thing, even though it was Big Bob’s last night, we all needed some rest. Safe travels to the kid, and the golf continues the next day - at Tralee.