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

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

Also called Baltray, County Louth is a hidden gem that runs by way 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, honest, good check of golf—hyperlinks golf at its best. It’s a spot the place each golfer ought to play at the very 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 newbie. The course additionally welcomes among the greatest gamers on this planet each June for the East of Eire Novice Open Championship, one of many 4 important newbie occasions held on the Emerald Isle every year. 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 newbie 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.

Picture by Andrew Redington/Getty Photos

The membership may even host the Boys Novice Championship in 2025, the R&A’s equal of the U.S. Junior Novice. County Louth takes large delight in its junior golf and family-friendly environment, because it has 250 junior members, lots of whom boast handicaps beneath 15. Competitions for juniors happen each Tuesday and Thursday all through the summer season 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 the US, 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 a number of—have all performed a distinguished function in making certain 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 on daily basis, and you will notice younger girls and boys taking part in all over the place you look, a welcome sight for any golfer of any age.

That additionally explains why internet hosting the Boys Novice 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 season, 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 considered one of Baltray’s lush fairways with County Louth Basic 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 enormous sanding program to make the fairways even firmer, making it a greater hyperlinks golf check. Donagher defined that, over the subsequent 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 this planet, not to mention in Eire.

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

Each gap is memorable, and the pot bunkers—properly, they’re fairly punishable. However by the point you attain the quick par-4 14th, you could have 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 complete 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 could have 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 outlet works itself gently uphill, to a inexperienced that has extreme drop-offs throughout—not not like 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 great thing about hyperlinks golf and of this course. In any case, you could 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 quick par-4, this 379-yard magnificence has zero pot bunkers. As an alternative, 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 possibly can 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 a must 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 needs to see. I sadly made a 9 on the straightforward par-5 2nd, which ought to have been a simple birdie alternative. However I appeared like a silly 30-handicapper within the bunker, smacking 4 pictures 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 exceptional. After I completed my spherical, I texted my father, saying, “That is my new favourite golf course on this planet. It’s that particular.”

So, if you wish to expertise this extraordinary place, you possibly can 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’t 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 workers author for SB Nation’s Taking part in By means of. You’ll want to take a look at @_PlayingThrough for extra golf protection. You possibly can observe him on Twitter @jack_milko as properly.