Doonber Golf Club - Ireland

Doonbeg immediately leapt into the ranks of the great links of western Ireland when it opened in 2002. This much ballyhooed course set in the pleated dunes and piled stone walls along Doughmore Bay in County Clare lives up to its billing. Located near the wee village of Doonbeg, the course was developed by Kiawah Development Partners, making Doonbeg the Irish cousin of the Ocean Course at South Carolina's Kiawah Island. Greg Norman made the most of the rare opportunity to layout a course on sacred golfing ground, making 22 visits over a three-year period to find the holes in the natural folds of the dunes and farmland. A 51-acre portion of the dunes was fenced off as a habitat preserve for the vertigo anguistor, a small snail, but that still left Norman with plenty of choice golfing ground. From the very first hole, Doonbeg captures the rustic, windswept flavor of Irish seaside golf, with the par-four fifth running oUt to the beach, and the shoreline hugging the right side of the 18th hole. Doonbeg can rightfully take its place alongside its famous golfing neighbors, Lahinch, Waterville, and Ballybunion.

Ballybunion Golf Club (Old Course) - Ireland

Ballybunion Old is the best-known course in Ireland and one of the most famous in the world, although its fame is relatively recent. Like many of the world's most resplendent links, Ballybunion was shaped as much by nature as by an architect, though Irish professional James McKenna was probably responsible for laying out the original course in the immense sand ridges that flank the encroaching Atlantic in County Kerry. Ballybunion traces its origin to 1893, starting out as a 12-hole course that was not fully extended to 18 until 1927. Tom Simpson was given free rein to alter the course in 1936, but recognizing that one should not attempt to repaint the Mona Lisa, he chose only to move three greens and add one fairway bunker, known as Mrs. Simpson. The first hole runs past a graveyard just off the right side of the fairway, while the 18th traverses a vast sandy waste area known as the Sahara. In between, the holes clamber and clatter through the sand dunes. Herbert Warren Wind wrote of his visit in 1971: "Very simply, Ballybunion revealed itself to be nothing less than the finest seaside course I have ever seen. "That article and the enthusiasm for Ballybunion of Tom Watson, who first visited the course in 1981 and made it a staple of his British Open preparations, brought the links to the attention of the world. Ballybunion added a second course, the Cashen Course, in 1980. Designed by Robert Trent Jones, it is a creative, controversial, and taxing links of the first order.