Waterville Golf Links - Ireland

Waterville Golf Links is located at the western tip of the Ring of Kerry, on a promontory overlooking Dallinskelligs Day with the estuary of the River Inny on one side and the mountains of Kerry as a backdrop. Waterville was founded and built by the late Irish-American multimillionaire Jack Mulcahy in 1973, at a time when there were virtually no new courses being built in Ireland. Mulcahy, who returned to Ireland in the 1960s after making his fortune in the U.S., also built Waterville House, a charming golf and fishing hotel-Waterville having long been renowned for its salmon fishing. The golf course is the masterwork of Irish architect Eddie Hackett, one of the few projects in which he actually worked on a big budget. After a comparatively tame stretch of opening holes, the course gathers force as it climbs and winds through the dunes. Two of the now legendary holes are the Mass, the par-three 12th situated where Mass was secretly celebrated in the deep hollow in front of the green in the days when Catholic worship was persecuted, and the par-three 17th, Mulcahy's Peak. The 17th tee is the highest point on the course, playing across the wild broken dunes, and was the favorite vista of Waterville's founder, whose ashes are buried beneath the tee box.

Lahinch Golf Club - Ireland

Lahinch is one of Ireland's most venerable links, named for the seaside village in County Clare overlooking Liscannor Bay and the famed razor-sheer Cliffs of Moher. The club was founded in 1892 by a group of well-to-do merchants from Limerick and in its early years the members came from the Protestant upper class. Lahinch quickly became a leading Irish golf resort, with fashionable golfers arriving from London by ferry and then railway from Dublin. The original course was designed by Old Tom Morris for a fee of £1 plus travel expenses, even less than he charged for his design at County Down-in Newcastle. The course was reshaped by Charles Gibson, the professional from Westward Ho! in 1907,and then redesigned by Alister MacKenzie in 1927,just before his work on Cypress Point and Augusta National. While MacKenzie modernized the course, he did not tamper with two of Lahinch's most famous holes, the Klondyke and the Dell, described by Herbert Warren Wind as "two living museum pieces." The Dell is the par-three sixth, an original from Old Tom's design that requires a blind shot over a dune to a featherbed of green. Lahinch is also famous for its weather-forecasting goats, which huddle near the clubhouse when rain is on the way.