Northern Ireland
A feature from the IAGTO Directory
2019
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland Made for golf: Northern Ireland is at the heart of golf’s past, present and future Home to major champions and major golf courses, Northern Ireland is at the heart of the game’s past, present and future and a destination every golfer should experience. For a small country, it punches far above its weight on the global stage, having produced three champions with six Major titles between them in the last decade – Rory McIlroy, Graeme McDowell and Darren Clarke. Underpinning that success are some of the finest golf courses in the world.
World-class links Royal Portrush and Royal County Down are rated among the best, the latter topping the Golf Digest world’s 100 greatest courses rankings in 2016 and again in 2017. Royal Portrush, on the Causeway Coast, will focus the spotlight on Northern Ireland even more when it hosts The 148th Open in July 2019, its second Open. Northern Ireland’s celebrated royal duo both have a distinguished pedigree going back to the late 19th century.
Portstewart Golf Club
Golf legends Old Tom Morris, Harry Colt and Harry Vardon all put their stamp on Royal County Down’s Championship Links. It has hosted the Irish Open, eight Ladies’ British Open Amateur Championships, the Curtis Cup in 1968 and the 2007 Walker Cup. Its par-66 Annesley course is also highly rated.
Redesigned by Harry Colt, Royal Portrush Golf Club’s Dunluce Links previously hosted The Open in 1951. Two new holes have been carved from its sister Valley course to create space for the 2019 Open spectator village. Royal Portrush has staged four Irish Opens and six Senior British Opens. Fifteen minutes from Royal Portrush, Portstewart Golf Club has 54 holes of links golf. Its Strand Course, the venue for the 2017 Dubai Duty Free Irish Open, is set amidst towering dunes, its opening hole regarded by many as Ireland’s best.
Royal County Down 56
Northern Ireland
Royal Portrush
Parkland beauties Northern Ireland also possesses a wealth of glorious parkland courses, including in capital Belfast. The region’s four golf resorts all offer extensive golf facilities with on-site accommodation, bars, restaurants, recreational activities and spas. The Hilton Belfast Templepatrick is just 20 minutes from Belfast and incorporates a 129-room, four-star spa hotel and a golf course with a floodlit driving range. Lough Erne Resort, with 120 rooms and loughside lodges, welcomed world leaders including Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin when it hosted the 2013 G8 summit. Its Thai Spa offers treatments including a two-hour Golfers Tonic massage. Roe Park Resort is a short drive from Royal Portrush and Causeway Coast attractions including UNESCO World Heritage Site the Giant’s Causeway. A golf academy and indoor teaching studio augment its 18-hole course. The resort’s 118-room hotel, originally a stately country house, offers two restaurants and an Elemis teaching academy spa. Galgorm Castle Golf Club, set amidst mature woods on the 220-acre Galgorm Castle Estate alongside its 17th century castle, stages the Challenge Tour’s annual Northern Ireland Open. The golf club’s new Castle Kitchen & Bar, featuring a terrace overlooking the castle and course, has been opened by the nearby Galgorm Resort & Spa, which features a riverside Thermal Village.
Secret gems Northern Ireland has many secret golfing gems. Kilkeel Golf Club, at the foot of the picturesque Mourne Mountains, has hosted British Amateur and Senior British Open qualifiers. Among centenarians are: Massereene Golf Club, established in 1895 on the Lough Neagh shore; Newtownstewart Golf Club, on the Duke of Abercorn’s Baronscourt Estate; Tandragee Golf Club, on the Duke of Manchester’s Estate with several bunkers resembling America’s Great Lakes designed by the Cincinnati-born Duchess of Manchester; and Omagh Golf Club. Other gems include County Down golf clubs Rockmount, St Patrick’s, Warrenpoint, Edenmore and 36-hole Clandeboye, County Antrim’s Lisburn Golf Club and County Tyrone’s Dungannon Golf Club.
Ardglass Golf Club
Along the coast from Royal County Down, Ardglass Golf Club’s spectacular links hug the rocky shore and cliffs. Its clubhouse, a 600-year-old former castle, is the world’s oldest. Kirkistown Castle Golf Club, on the Ards Peninsula, is another seaside gem. The closest links course to Belfast, it was designed by legendary architect James Braid. The Causeway Coast’s Ballycastle Golf Club, a mix of parkland and links, lies alongside Bonamargy Friary’s ruins. Cairndhu Golf Club has several seaside holes, its par-3 2nd hole perched on a rocky headland. On Derry’s outskirts, Foyle Golf Centre’s championship parkland Earhart Course is named after aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart, the first woman to fly the Atlantic solo. Her historic 1932 flight ended with an emergency landing on what is now the 6th green. 57
Northern Ireland
Golf in Belfast – just capital Few cities offer such choice and quality golf on their doorstep as Northern Ireland’s capital. Belfast’s four premier parkland golf clubs – Belvoir Park, Malone, Royal Belfast and Shandon Park – combine to stage the annual Belfast Parkland International tournament, open to visiting men and women golfers, with Tourism Northern Ireland, Visit Belfast and Tourism Ireland. All lie within a 15-minute drive of Belfast’s centre, making a city break combining golf, sightseeing and experiencing its culture, nightlife and culinary scene an attractive proposition. Once-troubled Belfast is now one of Europe’s friendliest, most vibrant and most cosmopolitan cities. Just three miles (5km) from Belfast’s centre, Belvoir Park Golf Club is its nearest course. Yet golfers feel a world away, both on its tree-lined fairways and in the clubhouse restaurant and bar, The View, looking out to the Black Mountains. Malone Golf Club’s three nine-hole layouts span mature wooded parkland on the Ballydrain Estate and its clubhouse – the 200-year-old former manor house – is reached via a tree-lined drive. Malone hosted the Irish Senior Championship in 2017. Northern Ireland’s oldest royal club, Royal Belfast Golf Club, lies alongside Belfast Lough, the main seaway into the city’s harbour and seven holes have views over it. The course hosted the 2017 Ladies’ Senior British Open Amateur Championship. In the leafy Shandon Park suburb, Shandon Park Golf Club’s clubhouse has a lively atmosphere, thanks in part to its many non-golfing social members.
Royal Belfast Golf Club
Belfast's Mercurial champion Rory McIlroy honed his skills on Holywood Golf Club’s hilly fairways and greens as a youngster. Still a member, he often drops in when he returns to Northern Ireland. Belfast attractions include the striking Titanic Belfast, named the world’s leading tourist attraction at the 2016 World Travel Awards and which celebrates the tragic liner at the shipyard where it was built, the imposing Belfast City Hall where an exhibition charts the city’s history, and Belfast’s powerful political and historical street-art murals. Besides excellent shopping there’s fantastic wining and dining options from bistros and gourmet coffee bars to gastro pubs, notably in Belfast’s walkable city-centre Cathedral and Linen quarters. Belfast can also be a base for playing elsewhere in Northern Ireland. Royal County Down is under an hour away and Royal Portrush is barely more than an hour’s drive. One thing’s certain: a golfing visit to Northern Ireland will leave titanic memories. For more information on Northern Ireland and its golf, visit www.discovernorthernireland.com By Peter Ellegard
Castlerock Golf Club 58
Cover Photo: Al Mouj Golf at Al Mouj Muscat • www.almoujgolf.com
For more info visit www.iagto.com
Concorde House, Grenville Place, London, NW7 3SA, United Kingdom Tel: +44 (0) 20 8906 3377 Fax: +44 (0) 20 8906 8181 Email: info@iagto.com Website: www.iagto.com IAGTO Ltd. is registered in England as a professional membership organisation No. 3507678. SIC 9112. VAT 710 1940 78. Directors: P Walton, C Carugati.