County Louth: Eire’s most underrated golf course you need to play

If you’re fortunate sufficient to make a journey to Eire to play some golf, you need to add County Louth Golf Membership to your checklist.

Also called Baltray, County Louth is a hidden gem that runs by means of the whispy dunes alongside the Irish Sea. Smylie Kaufman and Justin Thomas, who performed this course after The Open this 12 months—and two days after I did—agree.

Not a single blade of grass is misplaced, leaving you with the impression that you’re strolling alongside heavenly floor. It’s a agency, truthful, sensible take a look at of golf—hyperlinks golf at its best. It’s a spot the place each golfer ought to play at the least as soon as.

Baltray sits 4 miles east of the city of Drogheda—the ‘g’ is silent—and 45 minutes from the Dublin airport, a comfort for these touring from North America.

This golf course has loads of accolades, too. Golf Digest Eire has it ranked because the eighth greatest hyperlinks golf course in Eire, whereas many others across the British Isles rave about this place, too.

The DP World Tour’s Irish Open has visited twice, most not too long ago in 2009, when Shane Lowry gained the title as an beginner. The course additionally welcomes a number of the greatest gamers on the earth each June for the East of Eire Newbie Open Championship, one of many 4 vital beginner occasions held on the Emerald Isle annually. The East of Eire has been performed right here yearly since 1941, aside from 2020 and 2021, when the pandemic shut issues down. Notable champions of the East of Eire embody 2011 Open Champion Darren Clarke and former prime beginner Christo Lamprecht. This 12 months’s winner, Caolan Rafferty, a former greenskeeper at close by Dundalk Golf Membership, gained the 72-hole competitors at 15-under-par.

Photograph by Andrew Redington/Getty Pictures

The membership can even host the Boys Newbie Championship in 2025, the R&A’s equal of the U.S. Junior Newbie. County Louth takes great satisfaction in its junior golf and family-friendly environment, because it has 250 junior members, a lot of whom boast handicaps underneath 15. Competitions for juniors happen each Tuesday and Thursday all through the summer time and extra sporadically all through the winter months. Sure, County Louth’s local weather permits it to function 12 months per 12 months.

The course has a complete membership of about 1,500, a lot bigger than most golf equipment in america, a big chunk of that being households. It’s been like that for almost a century, too. The Connolly’s, Gannon’s, Garvey’s, Lyon’s, and the Reddan’s—to call just a few—have all performed a outstanding position in guaranteeing the membership’s success over time, and so they proceed to take action to at the present time.

Therefore, the tee sheet is loaded nearly daily, and you will note younger girls and boys taking part in in every single place you look, a welcome sight for any golfer of any age.

That additionally explains why internet hosting the Boys Newbie is such an enormous deal for County Louth, and the R&A gave it the final word reward prematurely of subsequent 12 months’s championship.

Earlier this summer time, an official from the R&A visited County Louth to scout the course and assess its situation. Just like the United States Golf Affiliation (USGA), the R&A prides itself on internet hosting its championships at the perfect venues.

So, whereas strolling down certainly one of Baltray’s lush fairways with County Louth Common Supervisor Ryan Donagher and Head Groundskeeper Wayne Murray, the consultant from the R&A started to shake his head in disbelief.

“This place is in higher form than any present Open Championship rota programs,” the official stated.

County Louth Golf Membership

“You could have one thing particular right here.”

But, the course continues to make slight enhancements

It should bear an unlimited sanding program to make the fairways even firmer, making it a greater hyperlinks golf take a look at. Donagher defined that, over the following 5 years, this sanding program would hopefully put County Louth within the sphere of Portmarnock, Royal Portrush, and Royal County Down—three of the perfect programs on the earth, not to mention in Eire.

As somebody who has performed this golf course, it definitely has that potential.

Each gap is memorable, and the pot bunkers—properly, they’re fairly punishable. However by the point you attain the brief par-4 14th, you’ve performed 13 phenomenal golf holes, all of which go in various instructions and have totally different traits. However there’s nothing fairly just like the 14th. You could have the whole course in entrance of you, and the crisp, cool air from the Irish Sea whips off out of your left, making you’re feeling like you’ve transcended into an otherworldly {golfing} universe. And on prime of all of it, this gap is an engineering marvel. It performs as a brief, 330-yard par-4 from the again tees, veering barely from left to proper. The opening works itself gently uphill, to a inexperienced that has extreme drop-offs throughout—not in contrast to what gamers noticed at this 12 months’s U.S. Open at Pinehurst No. 2.

County Louth Golf Membership

However each inexperienced at County Louth has quite a few run-offs and assortment areas, forcing gamers to make use of their creativeness with their method. That’s the fantastic thing about hyperlinks golf and of this course. In any case, you need to use the bottom to your benefit within the British Isles, taking part in the ball low and out of the wind. You even have to make use of the contours of the panorama to tally the perfect rating.

Take the par-4 4th, as an illustration—Donagher’s favourite gap on the property. One other brief par-4, this 379-yard magnificence has zero pot bunkers. As a substitute, a semi-blind tee shot leaves the participant uncomfortable on the tee, as do the mounds encompassing the inexperienced. It’s a quintessential hyperlinks golf gap, one the place you’ll be able to stroll away with a 3 or a six—with out discovering any of Louth’s treacherous holes of hell.

County Louth Golf Membership

Talking from expertise, it’s important to keep away from the pot bunkers, or else an eight or a 9 will present their ugly faces in your scorecard—a sight no one desires to see. I sadly made a 9 on the simple par-5 2nd, which ought to have been a straightforward birdie alternative. However I regarded like a silly 30-handicapper within the bunker, smacking 4 photographs into the revetted face earlier than strolling away with my tail between my legs.

And but, I had a smile on my face all day as a result of County Louth is that outstanding. After I completed my spherical, I texted my father, saying, “That is my new favourite golf course on the earth. It’s that particular.”

So, if you wish to expertise this extraordinary place, you’ll be able to name the County Louth professional store or use their on-line reserving system. Nevertheless, I encourage you to take action 12 months prematurely as a result of these tee sheets refill rapidly. Even then, it’s well worth the wait after which some. I do know I can not wait to return, and hopefully, in your sake, you add County Louth to your checklist, too. It should perpetually be amongst my favorites.

Jack Milko is a golf employees author for SB Nation’s Enjoying Via. Remember to take a look at @_PlayingThrough for extra golf protection. You may comply with him on Twitter @jack_milko as properly.