Dear Harvey,
Before Emily and Kyle’s wedding, I came down with appendicitis. Ouch! I thought I had pulled an abdominal muscle working on a more shallow angle of attack. It turned out to be a bit more serious. Fortunately, the appendectomy was a smooth laparoscopic procedure, and I mended well.
While bedridden, with an upcoming business trip to Dublin, I had time to plan three days of golf at Ballybunion, Dingle, and Dooks. Perhaps a bit much for Cathy, but it gave her a taste of what a boys’ golf trip is all about. Play often, play hard, eat well, rinse, and repeat. She was a trooper.
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| John Keane (1928-2002) |
We rented a tiny car in Dublin, where I learned Avis is serious about car insurance in Ireland. A £2500 deposit was required just in case this American-trained driver found the roads too skinny, which I did. “Keep the curb on the left, gPage!”
We headed to the Southwest and spent our first night in The Listowel Arms Hotel. “The town (of Listowel) is sometimes described as the “Literary Capital of Ireland” and several internationally known playwrights and authors have lived there, including Bryan MacMahon and John B. Keane.” Reference Irish Tourism: Listowel.
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| Drinks with John Beary at The Listowel Arms |
In addition to hanging with John Keane, we were greeted by our host, John Beary, for drinks before dinner. John is a friend of Uncle Charlie, who is a ‘Country Member’ at Ballybunion. John proved a most outstanding host.
You can tell from our smiles how excited we were to play what many consider the finest links course in the world. John is on the greens committee and was also recovering from surgery. But he walked nearly every hole with us. I loved his stories about the club as well as interesting tips on agronomy. For example, the native grass is called marram grass. In the photo below, John has noted the marram is improperly positioned. The natural runoff of a shot should collect in the fairway bunker, not in the grass.
As for the overall course description, I can’t do better than Tom Coyne, who writes this towards the end of his epic walk around Ireland in A Course Called Ireland.
“I’m not going to tell you much about the Ballybunion links. If you’ve played it, you know. If you haven’t, I’m sorry. Other places I visited were Irish links golf courses; to me, Ballybunion was Irish links golf. Bold but still subtle, grand without feeling pretentious, it was an ancient course where every inch still felt relevant.
The second with its green tossed high above a hilltop; the seventh where the waves licked your cheeks and hopefully not your Titleist; the meanest 130 yards in Ireland covered with sand pits and uncharitable caroms on 8; and what about 11, a par-four rippling downward through the dunes, dollops of fairways spread here and there between the sand hills, or 16, where you fired over a ridge of dunes in search of a ribbon of fairway from which you would fight your way upward to a green floating on the horizon. Seventeen along the beach was hard to play as you fumbled for your camera, and if there was a better approach to a finishing hole than the second shot to the vaulted eighteenth at Ballybunion, the deep green set into a saddle of gentle humps and dune grasses, I had yet to play it. I’ll stop there so as not to spoil the movie, because even if you’re better with a camera than a pitching wedge, you should still go down to Kerry and see it.”
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| “….. if there was a better approach to a finishing hole than the second shot to the vaulted eighteenth at Ballybunion, the deep green set into a saddle of gentle humps and dune grasses, I had yet to play it.” – Tom Coyne |
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| View of 18 from our lunch table. Amazing! |
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| Also enjoyed the company of our 4th, Dan Molyneaux, a local member and friend of Uncle Charlie. Dan added plenty of great course knowledge to the round including this gem: “A golf journalist once described hitting your shot from the second fairway like hitting it from the midriff of a reclining Dolly Parton.” (Harvey, I’ll post a photo of that approach shot below my signature just for you.) |
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| With John on the famous back tee of the 11th hole. Now named in honor of Tom Watson, many consider this one of the best golf holes in the world. A 385-yard par four. Plays much longer. Stunning views from the tee. Just hit it out there and hope to find some fairway. Then proceed down to what they call ‘the steps’ – three distinct plateaus unlike anything you have ever seen. The shot into the green is daunting, to say the least, regardless of which level you are on. Here’s a good look at the hole from the green back towards the tee. |
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| The pros refused to play from this back tee box on 11 during an Irish Open. We refused to as well. (-; (Footnote: Uncle Charlie chimes in that he once holed out with an 8-iron for eagle on 11. Get out of here!) |
After finishing at Ballyb, we headed to an Airbnb in the small village of Cromane, near Killorglin. We explored the Dingle Peninsula the next day before an afternoon tee at Dingle Golf Links, also known as Ceann Sibéal. It was another excellent links, and as you will see, the weather cooperated again. Below is a short video of the drive, plus photos from our lunch stop in the quaint town of Dingle, CO, Kerry, followed by a few photos from the course.
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| The nice setup here, just need a little stronger left-hand grip, says not her husband . . . Cathy’s game is really improving! |
On day four, without a tee time, we adventured around the Ring of Kerry before heading to Dublin for our evening flight.
It was a great ‘boys’ golf trip, Harvey, and I look forward to returning to Ireland for more. Next up, Cornwall, for another crack at Trevose and St. Enodoc at the end of May. Hooray for three bank holidays in a month!
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| From the second fairway at Ballybunion. Hello Dolly! (By the way, Ballybunion is actually a fairly new course, compared to many of the other famous links-style courses I have had the chance to play these past couple of years. Records indicate the club was founded in 1896, but fell on hard times and reopened in 1908. The course you play today (The Old Course) was opened in 1927.) |
“Millions of people were charmed by the homespun golf advice dispensed in Harvey Penick’s Little Red Book, a sports classic that became the best-selling sports book of all time. Yet, beyond the Texas golf courses where Penick happily toiled for the better part of eight decades, few people knew the self-made golf pro who coaxed the best out of countless greats — Tom Kite, Ben Crenshaw, Betsy Rawls, Mickey Wright — all champions who considered Penick their coach and lifelong friend.” – Kevin Robbins, author of Harvey Penick: The Life and Wisdom of the Man Who Wrote the Book on Golf.
