Portmarnock Golf Club - Ireland

Portmarnock is the golfing pride of Dublin, located across an estuary on a two-mile-long peninsula that juts into Dublin Bay. Like many other early Irish courses, Portmarnock was founded by Protestant businessmen, in this case a Scottish insurance executive named William Chalmers Pickeman, who rowed over to survey the site on Christmas Eve in 1893 with his friend George Ross. The first nine holes opened in 1894, on land owned by the Jameson distillery family, with an outhouse belonging to local resident Maggie Leonard serving as the first clubhouse. The course, which evolved over time, is a low-lying, somewhat understated, and strategic links compared to its more rambunctious cousins on the west coast. The 185-yard par-three 15th that runs hard along the shore of Dublin Bay, with a sprig of palm tree to the front right of the green, features views across the sea to Ireland's Eye and the Lambay Islands. Portmarnock has hosted more championships than any other Irish course, including the 1991 Walker Cup and many Irish Opens.

Old Head Golf Links - Ireland

Old Head Golf Links, opened in 1997, is located seven miles south of the harbor town of Kinsale in County Cork. The Course occupies a 220-acre dragon's tongue of land lashed across high sea cliffs above the Atlantic. Old Head, declared Joseph Passov in Links Magazine, "is the most spectacular course on earth." Until 1978, the rocky promontory was farmland, but brothers John and Patrick O'Connor, both successful real estate developers, recognized that the site would make for a magical golf course. The O' Connors hired American Course architect Ron Kirby, who teamed up with Ireland's leading architect Eddie Hackett, Waterville pro Liam Higgins, and the legendary Irish amateur Joe Carr. No less than nine of the holes rollick and rumble across the rocky cliffs, which rise 300 feet above the ocean, not far from where the Lusitania was torpedoed by a German U-boat in 1915. The symbol of Old Head is the lighthouse at the tip of the promontory built in 1853.