The Full Irish: Portmarnock Golf Club
The Full Irish begins with a world class course near Dublin
The Full Irish has begun in San Francisco, and we had planned our tee time at Portmarnock Golf Club to be about three hours and 15 minutes after we landed. The club is located about 20 minutes from Dublin airport, so we felt comfortable with this window and … you see where this is going.
Our flight took off about ninety minutes late, due to (hilariously, now) the entire flight crew sitting at their hotel waiting for a shuttle. So, that was awesome. After landing, we needed almost everything to go right in order for us to make our first tee time.
Immigration - smooth
Bags - located!
Rental car - secured. (There was a fairly huge line at the counter, but for our rental agency - National Car Rental - there was a separate, empty line. Thank goodness.)
We pulled into Portmarnock Golf Club with about 12 minutes to spare before our round. A quick run into the Pro Shop and then the clubhouse to change, and we were teeing off in Ireland!
Founded: 1894
Rankings:
Top100GolfCourses: 48 (Worldwide), 15 (Britain & Ireland), 4 (Ireland)
The Irish Golfer: 2 (Ireland)
Golf.com: 17 (UK & Ireland)
The first thing you need to know about Portmarnock Golf Club is that it is NOT Portmarnock Links. The former - where we played today and prioritized on our rota - was built in 1894 and has hosted multiple Irish Opens, Walker Cups and such. It’s ranked as the 4th best course in Ireland and the 48th best course in the world. Portmarnock Links? It was designed by Bernard Langher, opened in 1995 and was featured on a season of The Golf Channel’s The Big Break. (I’m sure it’s a lovely course. That’s not where we wanted to play.) I can’t imagine how many people book the wrong course and while I understand that they are both in a town named Portmarnock, it seems egregious that this was allowed to happen in such close proximity.
Another fun fact I learned doing a bit of research is that among the many elite head professionals at Portmarnock was Eddie Hackett, who later became a golf course architect and designed many of the courses we’ll be playing on our trip. It will be interesting to note what inspiration he may have gained, but on reputation the understated nature of Portmarnock is what he brought, not moving around a ton of land but instead using the natural landscape afforded to him.
But before we get too deep into the course, as this is the first of many posts, it’s probably good to introduce our cast of characters.
There’s me, of course. Hello. (I’m the one in the white top and olive pants.)
Taking the ENTIRE Full Irish along with me is Andy, aka AC. a friend for the last 30 years from grad school and my partner in crime with preposterous golf trips. He’s in the red shirt there, looking crispy.
Also along for this first leg is Thunder - another friend since grad school, a tremendous athlete and human who we used to call Golden Boy until we realized he didn’t really like it. (He’s nattily clad in the blue and white, perhaps celebrating his alma mater of UNC.)
Finally, in the loud, holly inspired pants is Second Rob, one of my close friends from home and a true joy on the course. Why “Second” Rob?
Originally, the foursome was going to be rounded out by our grad school friend Miles, who goes by his middle name Robert - that would deem him First Rob (there are two other Robs on this trip) … but he decided to prioritize going to a water park in the Wisconsin Dells or something rational like that instead of a dream golf vacation in Ireland with some of his best friends. Life is all about choices, folks.
But First Rob and Thunder never planned onjoining us for the entire three weeks - and none of the other four guys in our grad school golf buddies crew could make it, for various reasons. Even before we knew all this, Second Rob had stuck his hand up and asked if he could join, which was greeted with an enthusiastic yes. All four of us had a long weekend golf trip together last summer in Monterey, so we are adding this first week onto a lot of excellent golf memories. Rob has also brought along his wife and one of his kids, who will find something to do while we fart around on the course.
One question we had about our trip was when we would have caddies helping us, and when we wouldn’t. I didn’t want to deal with a caddie for this first round, mostly out of feeling bad about what I expected my game to be - but a forecaddie is a requirement, so we greeted our man Noel and set about.
One thing I set off hoping for was The Thud. That’s the special sound of the club or ball hitting the ground on a true links course. I heard it through Scotland, you hear it at Bandon Dunes and for me, not much elsewhere. It’s the sound of golf played differently - the right way, many would argue - and it’s hard for Americans to find. Portmarnock Golf Club would be our first chance to hear The Thud.
Oh, the Thud was there. The ball rolled firm and fast. On the first hole, my approach landed short of the green, and just kept rolling - uphill - and came to rest on the green about 15 feet away from the cup. Indeed, my first two holes I hit the fairway, hit the green in regulation and made simple two putt pars. This was going to be amazing!
Alas, reality set in and I played fairly steady, bogey golf for the round. It wasn’t until the 13th hole that I found the true, crunchy and thick rough, and absolutely took it on the chin trying to get out of there. (Our forecaddie Noel telling me to hit as far as I possibly could was probably not the advice I needed, as a simple wedge back to the fairway would have saved that hole, but I’m the one who made the bad decision AND swing. OK, swings.)
While we will be finding courses with huge dunes quite soon, most of Portmarnock is flat - and felt very Scottish in a lot of ways, including the hundreds of pot bunkers across the course, of which I found many.
Sneak preview - things started going poorly for me in the bunkers in a few days, so I’m glad Second Rob took this video to remind me that I can hit out of bunkers sometimes.
Thunder did manage to find one large dune and I wish I could show you how good his shot was from there, but it was a tap-in from a spot nobody thought he’d even find his ball let alone be able to advance it.
Ireland has been having an incredibly wet summer, and the forecasts weren’t ideal - but despite some clouds in the sky, we didn’t have a drop of rain and the wind was almost non-existent on some holes which was wild (and, to hear AC say it, a bit creepy.) We almost certainly won’t avoid bad weather, but it was nice to have a good weather day to start us off.
In the evening, we headed to our hotel in nearby Malahide. (Fun fact, our hotel was used in a scene from the very awesome show Bad Sisters which you should watch immediately.) While every effort was made to enjoy the craic, jet lag was also quite real. The food was fantastic and the Jameson and gingers were tasty.
While I did manage to sleep a bit on the plane ride over here, at some point my body just wouldn’t let me forget how tired I was, and I nodded off somewhere around 10:30 or 11:00 PM.
The next day …. Ardglass.