This article is from page 84 of the 2008-05-20 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 84 JPG
CLARE golf clubs confirmed their quality yesterday when four of the county’s courses were chosen among Ireland’s top 100 courses.
The now established list was com- piled for the latest edition of Golf Digest Ireland and was chosen by a panel of experts.
Lahinch was deemed the leading Clare course and moved up the lad- der from eleventh position to eight due mainly to the growing impact of a major re-modelling by English golf-course architect, Martin Haw- Kron
Shannon Golf Club also received a confidence boost when it made the list for the first time, coming in at number 67. The other two golf courses in Clare to make the list were Doonbeg, which took the 29th spot, and Dromoland Castle, further lo: 1el tres) ROe
For a second-year running, the number one course was listed as
Royal County Down and Portmar- nock’s position of number two 1s also the same as last year.
Further down the order, however, there is some interesting movement in the top ten in which Ballybunion (Old) has climbed from fourth to third.
This means that Adare Manor goes down to number four, but it remains the top-ranked parkland course in the country, by a significant margin. The European Club remains fifth; Waterville remains sixth but the Co Louth links at Baltray has moved up one, to seventh place. Royal Portrush comes in at ninth with tenth place being awarded to the K Club Palmer Course, venue for the 2006 Ryder Cup.
“Movement is evident on this year’s list, due to a massive investment which has seen significant upgrading of a number of courses,’ explained Linton Walsh, managing director, Golf Digest Ireland. “After the pub- lication of last year’s list, the maga-
Zine contacted all of the courses on this island, requesting information on any work that was being under- taken. Replies were received from 53 of these clubs. A member of the panel or a PGA member inspected each of these courses and the im- provements were duly noted during voting on this year’s list.”
The top 100 were selected in groups of ten, which meant, that any course which went close to making the top ten, automatically came into consid- eration for the second ten, and so on down the list.
After a discussion on each group of courses, an individual, written vote was taken, with points being awarded to each course in order of preference, from 10 down to one. The counted votes then determined the order of preference.