I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset.
When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
And when I find my ball in a fried.
Egg Friday egg, the dreaded Frida egg Friday Frida Egg Egg, fridagg bride egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off of the course.
Welcome back to another edition of the Friday Golf Podcast. I am your host, Andy Johnson. Today we are going to talk Royal County Down in the Irish Open. I
am pleased to be joined by Darra Garahey. He is a friend of mine that I met h longtime, you know, emailer and communicator, but we met when I was in iraland earlier this year played some golf together and he is a I would say a he's a diehard when it comes to golf architecture, at golf history and knows just a ton about golf on the island of Ireland.
So I had one.
I figured he'd be a great guest to come on and talk about Royal County Down and didn't disappoint. He came prepared, ready to go. We talked about one of the world's greatest golf courses and this week's Irish Open host. I figured this would be a great table setter for kind of I would say, the the last hurrah of pro golf this year. This year, you know, we got the Pea Cup coming up, the President's Cup coming up,
but I think this Royal County Down this weekend. You obviously have the Solheim Cup at RTJ after and we'll have an episode later this week that kind of centers on that. But the I think the the Irish Open and Royal County Down is it's going to deliver the goods for people that are really into golf courses and in architecture. That'll be on Golf Channel early in the morning in the States all week, so check that out. Before we get to Dara, let's talk a little bit
about Club TFE. That is our sponsor of this pod. It's our membership, it's the fridaygg's membership, and it is it's a bustle in place. We're producing a lot of content. I'm actually working on a Royal Kenny Down written profile. So every week we do a course profile in there where we go dive deep into a golf course. Last week we had one of our member videos that comes that we put out a couple of those every year
that was on Southern Pines. We have Design Notebook that comes out every Monday that kind of talks about what's going on in the golf design world.
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On top of that, there a discounts to the pro Shop, and there are a handful of member only events, maybe a few more. We've got some really awesome couple of add ons that we've added that we'll be announced next week as some very good golf courses in America some would say probably a couple of the best golf courses in America. Those will go up next week. But really cool offering and big thanks to everybody that's joined and
supported us. It's one hundred and twenty dollars for the year and it really goes to helping us continue to grow and do more stuff. So just to check that out. And then one other reminder we did I did a big video with the help of Cameron heard us on Royal County Down talked about that. That's up on our free YouTube page. If you don't subscribe, check that out, subscribe and watch that video. That was super fun to see come to life. Cameron is believable at putting those
videos together. So let's get to Dara and our talk about Royal County Down. Dearah, it's Irish Open Week. This is a great year of the Irish Open. Gone is Mount Juliet for this year and and Royal County Down is the host course hasn't hosted in almost a decade and this will be really like I think, like in terms of modern golf coverage between social media, HD cameras, this is really kind of the coming out party for Royal County Down in the in the modern golf viewing
era with with social media. And so what are a few of your favorite things about the Irish Open and so.
Much to say what a week it's going to be. Just reflect on the week. First of all, I saw you've put the Orish Open up as your event of the week and your various social media outlets. I'm going to push back a little. I'm going to say the Crump Cup is on in Pine Valley, So between the Pine Valley and Royal County Down and being showcased, I just think it's going to be an incredible week in golf.
Obviously we can't watch Pine Valley, so I'm going to go up to Royal County Down on Saturday, and I just can't wait to see.
It with the you're going up huh oh, yeah.
I'm going up on So I went to the Saturday in twenty fifteen as well, and I'm going to be up on Saturday this year again. The weather was pretty bad in twenty fifteen. I think there was some pretty high scores on the Saturday I was up there, or maybe it was a Friday. But I can't wait to go up just with you know, the golf schedule since the PGA Championship moved, I think Andy from August to July or August to May, everything wraps up so quickly in terms of major events on great courses, seems to
wrap up the end of July. We get a premature end. So we've just been blessed this year with this wonderful closing chapter in Royal County Down. So I wouldn't miss it for anything. It's just it's going to be spectacular, it's going to be firm. The weather's been good here for the last week or so. I just saw a picture today of Shane Lowry and Port Rush with some myits on, so it can change. But at least there should be some firmness in it unless it gets it dowsing.
But the Irish Open is, as you said, returning to a Lynx course, we're spiritual home. We're so charmed. It's you know, the heyday of the Irish Open was the nineteen seventies and nineteen eighties, played mainly on Portmarnick, occasional smatterings in Royal Dublin, and they were just brilliant events. Nineteen eighty six to nineteen ninety I think Sevy one, then Bernard Langer won, then Woozy went back to back and then I think it was Ola Thabel one in
nineteen ninety. Huge crowds. Those days maybe slightly gone. We know all the commercial concerns that go around hosting a tournament and we can't always go to top tier links and you've talked so much about that. But just to be able to go back even this once this year, it's just amazing and I can't wait to see it and I hope everyone in America gets to watch some of it as well.
I think like one of the interesting things about the Irish Open is having, you know, our visit to Ireland this spring kind of illuminated how great the amateur championships are in Ireland, whether it's the North, the South, the East, the West, and the courses, the host courses you know, you know Royal Port, Rush, Bealtray, County Law and La Hinch as a host like and you get these great
amateur championships which anybody can enter. You can enter as an American, you can enter as an Australian, play these great links courses. But then you know, in recent years the Irish Open we've had Mount Juliet, we get the kind of interior, you know, the interior non links golf courses, and I think, like from from a standpoint of pro golf, I think venues add a lot. And when John Rahm won it Hinch years ago, it was like an amazing like win right, it was just like an amazing tournament.
Everything.
This this event needs to be held at the great golf courses in Ireland.
It's a showcase for the Island of Ireland.
Speaking of as the island as a whole for golf, I think that's generally the premise there. But these should be hosted around and it should be a big deal. Winning the Irish Open at Port Marnick or Hinch or
wherever it may be. And I just hope that this trend kind of continues in the next couple decades of getting places like I'm sure Royal County Down probably wants to host about once every ten years, but there could you know, with a little planning, you could do an awesome rotation of ten or so courses in Ireland.
Would do you agree with that?
I would've You've mentioned so many interesting points there. I think, as you said, or City probably and any topp Links course. They're so filled with visitors now and obviously they're private members' clubs that there is a limitation on when they can hot. So we should say thanks to Yald County Down first
of all. And you notice you picked up on the love of Irish people have for amateur golf and the great courses that host those tournaments, and they are just it's just it's an over and above love for amateur golf that we have here and we're so lucky they
are in great golf courses. But the history of the Irish Open, as you mentioned there like it was, it's coming up one hundred years now, so in nineteen twenty seven and the first one was in Port Mark and the second one was in World County Down And obviously times have changed so much since then, but we've only got these matterings of hostings in Port Rush or in
Lahinch that John ram One like. When I was growing up as a kid, one of my standout memories is and you mentioned Mount Juliette earlier and the Irish Open, and interesting enough, on the European tour was actually becoming quite strong, and we'll say it in nineties and two thousands that's when the Irish Open moved for obviously commercial reasons and then other reasons from the like support Marnic in Royld Dublin to Druid's Lend to Killarney, to Photo
Island and occasionally dipped back into Baltray and then in later years support Rush et cetera. But I remember going to Bali Bunyon in about two thousand with my dad. He brought me down as the first golf tournament I'd ever been at. I was ten years of age, and that just resonated so hard with me. I'd never seen a links golf of course in my life. It probably played a large reason into why I really got into golf.
After that, I only started playing golf. And as you say, if we could even occasionally lock something in, given the great courses that we have the porst viewers not to mention the Big five or the Big six, it would just be it would add so much to world golf, and given all the discussions that are going on, it's particularly pertinent. I think I would say that things were going particularly while Andy pre COVID in with the Irish Open,
the Rolex series. There was a lot of money being pumped in and we went back to back I think in Lahinch and Port Rush. So that was and I think unfortunately obviously COVID happened in European to European tour position weakened. But you know, you never know what's around the corner, and I think that if there's anything the tours can do to come around to this area of having a link swing, and Ireland has so much stuffware in terms of the best courses, it's a lot of
interesting discourse now around Live. Have obviously said there's chat about John rab wanting a Links event in Ireland before the British Open, so I think it should be to the forefront of everyone's minds. We have too much good stuff to offer and everyone's going to see it this weekend in County Down.
Yeah, you hit on an interesting point of the future of the Irish Open, and we'll get to ROC after this.
But you know, I think one of the things you watch what's going on with the you know, potential Saudi Public Investment Fund PGA tour deal or in lack of progress on the deal, I think like one of the big things that's a sticking point of the deal is a world tour, you know, a global a little bit more of a global game where the best players in the world travel around the you know, to the biggest golf markets in the world.
The Irish Open would seemingly be a.
Lynchpin to that world tour and it is probably you know, along with the Scottish Open and Wentworth behind, you know, the the Open Championship as the premiere worldwide event. You know, I think like the Australian Open, you'd throw in there also. But you know, if if a deal doesn't happen, and maybe the Saudi's look at the European Tour more closely. This this event to me, if you were going to you know, do like a stock exchange for golf events.
This event seems to have the most potential of becoming.
A great, great event again.
You know, yeah, that's just such a brilliant point. Like firstly, obviously the Scottish Open occupies I think currently the slot before the Open Championship, and Scotland has an unbelievable amount offer in terms of classic of courses and indeed renaissance, etc. But the Irish economy is booming, there's no shortage of sponsors.
The Irish links to America in particular are strong. There's a precedent for the Irish Open being a really, really great event, like Ben Crenshaw used to come over in the mid seventies when nobody was coming over, those record crowds at these Irish Opens. We're a natural midpoint between everyone that's involved in all these negotiations in this game. And as you say, I'm not down on the Irish Open at all. I think it's got a huge promise
to come Andy, I really do. I think that the Irish Open should really be agitating for a more premier spot in the calendar. I did start this podcast saying September is pre eminent in terms of conditioning for a link course, and of course it is. But we any top pro would love to be in Ireland the week before an Open or two weeks before. Courses around Ireland, as you've obviously seen on social media have no shortage of top pros coming to prepare anyway.
Privately, you know, you know who's one of them that goes to Ireland every year before the Open?
Go on?
Tiger?
Tiger, Well, yeah, yeah, Tiger. There's a great, great picture of Tiger in two or must be maybe ninety eight or ninety nine playing Port Marnick and some of the guys who obviously in the club watch him play that day. In only but five or six people watched him playing. This is absolutely incredible. But I've seen Dustin Johnson had a couple of times, and lots of other guys come because, for example, obviously playing Port Marnix some a little bit boys, but Port Marnick is as firm and as kind of
intrigate as it gets. You know, it's very similar to a lot of the style of golf played on certain Open venues like Mierfield. But we have so much to offer. We have occupied that kind of top spot in world golf. In terms of our Open and the history like the history of our National Open and the national Opens are so important and the Irish Open is really to the top of those. Andyes, so something that's here to my heart and I'd love to see it get a better position.
And I think it's very well primed too.
I think, you know, we talked about they brought up the Scottish Open. One of the things that the Scottish Open struggles with is is venues, because you know, the venue, the great championship venues are kind of wrapped into the Open rota, right, and they aren't. They aren't looking necessarily to host a Scottish Open. So what happens with the Scottish Open. And these are still great golf courses, just
not the country's top tier golf courses. The Scottish Open goes to places like Gullen in Renaissance versus you know, your mirfields, your your truons, your your your great great
championship hosts. The thing that Ireland has is that it is never I don't think it's ever outside of like Port Rush, and you know, it's never going to be a hub of open championship golf because you know, the Open is it's just that the Irish Open, So the Irish Open heads this opportunity of we can we can get the greatest golf courses of Ireland to.
Host absolutely and you know, obviously there's been a little bit of discussion recently about Port Marnik maybe putting a stand up for bigger events and whatever. But well, while all that's going on in the background, there are so many golf courses that could put their hand up. Baltray would be only too willing. There's places like bally Lyffin, which is obviously hard to get to. Yeah, but Lahinch was such a success, bally Bunyan that I went to in two thousand or maybe two thousand and one, I
think it was two thousand. I remember watching Garcia. I was really got me in throlled with golf, I think. But we are perfectly perfectly situated for all this, and as you said, we're not you know, we're not. We're not in the same situation as Scotland is with all the open road courses, so we have a completely blank slate and it's just the world is our oyster. And I really do think it's going to happen quite soon.
And I think that the negotiations that are going on probably will have a very positive outlook or positive end result for Ireland and all this. I think that I just thought the live chatter was quite interesting. I think that that that'll bubble up and keep bubbling, you know. I think that if they were to look for venues,
they would probably find this under the surface. They have eight or ten brilliant golf courses in Ireland that they could host a brilliant event on the week before the Open and that'll peak people's interest handy.
So all right, let's talk about this week's brilliant venue.
Royal County down.
Staggeringly, staggeringly brilliant, just arguably the best course in Ireland and the island of Ireland arguably the best golf in the world.
People would put that in there, you know, it is I think like it is a it's somewhere. It's a golf course that you can I don't think anybody could visit and be like, you know what, not my cup of tea because it kind of offers everything from staggering beauty challenge. There is like in a sense of adventure to the golf course, and I think there's a very brilliant golf design, so you kind of package all that together.
People might like one course more than an other. Somebody might like Port Rushmore, or someone might like Port Marnock Moore, someone might but like l Hinchmore. But I don't think it's a golf course many people go to and say, you know, I wish I hadn't come up here, this was overrated, or this is this is too much. What is your personal history, When was the first time that you visited Royal County Down and what stood out to you.
I went to Dublin College in Dublin and played on the university golf team, and I still have photos that took on a low megapixel camera of we were lucky enough to play against university in the North of Ireland who had playing rights in Royal County Down or just the ability to host matches. And it was March two thousand and nine, the times time says, and the more mountains were snow capped. But I don't think they care too much about frost Up and roll County Down back then.
So I still have all these pictures of my opponent gone down the fairway, who was a good player who beat me. But I just I couldn't believe I was playing rold County Down. I'd read about it for so long and with the whole place for ourselves. It was absolutely freezing. And he's along with his myths in his hat, and I, you know, like any golf course, I really didn't get a sense of it on first play. I
was overawed by it. I did play a couple of more university matches there, but then I went back many more times of a particularly good friend there who actually want the club championship there a couple of weeks ago for the first time. So well done to Jack, but I went back many times with him and indeed them with other pals. And it's obviously it's less than two hours up the road from Port Marnick, and I just
it's a truly great golf course. Like I've given up on golf course rankings, and they're one of the most useless things I think ever. I like to bucket golf courses, and County Down is so far to the top of the top tier bucket. It's just, you know, it's truly great golf course because it has so many great golf holes. That's what a great golf course has. To have great golf holes and world County Down has twelve plus truly brilliant golf holes. And as much as I you know,
I was just talking with my friend. My friend we won the club championship. But I'll never admit to him Monroe texting each other about County Down being better than where I play in portmeric or whatever. But there is just so much good going on that even if you think that the last three holes are overrated, or some contriving about the new sixteenth, or you know, you think the seventeenth is week, which I don't think. I'd love to chat about that the last trials. I think the
seventeenth is she has a great green site. But County Down is just all about the terrain. The various people involved in shaping it throughout the years never tried to make too much of the greens. That didn't put bells and whistles on. They're just so they're perfect for the land they occupy. It's staggerantly beautiful and it might be perhaps the most natural top tier course in the world, I think, because there's nothing. You know, it's got foibles,
but it's all about the terrain. It's just perfectly put along the terrain, but it was quite a journey to get there. I don't know if you want to go into it, but every samples nothing like the golf course that was there in kind of eighteen well, eighteen eighty nine when it started to nineteen twenty six when Harry Colt came. But that briefly. Sorry to answer your original question, that was my that's my history with it. I've played it so many times and it's a joy to go
up there every single time. I find it to be an incredibly hard golf course, which is the way to start the outside of his part, I was laughing at the idea of the Crumb Cup and Pine Valley in the other sho opening in County Down, but because it is a really, really difficult golf course, even in nineteen oh eight or nineteen seven, I think of us with a six four hundred yards. But it started, it started. If you're happy to me to keep going, it started.
In eighty Yeah, I was just gonna I was gonna jump in here and just go ahead.
I think like a couple of things that you you hit on.
There are Oh I don't know if any golf course that has as many overwhelmingly great golf.
Holes, truly brilliant, so many of them, like.
We can start, you can like like you can nitpick.
There are I think there are a couple couple of
weak moments in the round. But in terms of any golf course in the world that I've played, there is no golf course that, like, if you just like were like, what are the greatest golf holes in the world, I don't think any golf course would have as many in that initial list because it's like one, two, three, four or five six, So like you just go the whole front nine, the entire front nine, Like, is there another golf course in the world that has as good of nine holes?
Any nine, like any nine you want to pick?
You could go one, seven, fourteen, like you could pick your best nine. I don't know if there's any nine that is as good as the front nine at Royal County.
Dowbt not even close. Is the running course in the world where you I think the first hole is magnificent, But you walk down the first hole like you walk down every hole, every first hole. But what you should do in first thing, I turn around and look back up the fairway because you just it's stagnantly brilliant to
just look back on. And then you know, you get to the second and I'm not a great lover of flying holes, but they don't bother me in Roild County down at all because there's some sort of a compression or lease on most aspect to the second hole, the t shot, because even though it's a blind shot, which you may or may not like, it's up to your personal preference, but it's so wide when you get over the hill that you like, it's so different, it's so wide,
and it's just gives so many options, and you know that that second. Obviously, they approach to the second can be blind depending on where you've hitch your T shirt if you pull it left, but that that used to be I think in different stages that was a completely blind approach shot as well.
Yeah, they knocked down the do knock down went all the way across.
And yeah they knocked down to doing ridge that I think at various points they knocked that down. But they also attempted to build up the back of the green. But then you know, like the the first three holes kind of play out like a classic links But obviously
then it turns on itself at four. And when you get these golf courses in Britain and Ireland that play out and in even though a county nown doesn't, but the first three holes play out, and they often have a sense of claustrophobia, I find, but that there's just none of that. There's a sense of space, as I said about the release on the second, there's a great sense of space. And the third, which is one of the best holes. I absolutely love the third. But you'd
be so hard picked to pick your favorite holes. If I asked you to pick your three favorite holes in the frontline county down, we could be here all day and all night. I think I'd probably go for a soft spot for eight.
It's amazing.
It is amazing, and it used to it used to play it played down to the left. Yeah, and we'll come on too that I'll go through that, but.
Now we can't go now we're here, now.
Okay, great, Okay, Well maybe i'll work back. So I think the golf course, I'll do it in stages of that properly. So the golf course eighteen eighty nine rudimentary course laid out resemble nothing like the current course and then old to Mars came three months after it was opened and suggested changes and they built three new holes and six year holes, so very suddenly done. By eighteen ninety there was eighteen holes course. And you alluded to
the Irish lave of amateur golf earlier. Immediately the golf course was hosting Irish amateur opens where the great players from the UK were coming over, John Boll and all these type of characters. And then there was some pro events. Even I think Hilton and Braid might have been coming over as well. So it was a plague championship government.
One of the things about the early golf course was and how this golf course people came to play it was that the first and eighteenth green were right next to a train station.
Yeah, so what happened there. What happened there was like all good golf, like all golf in britaint Isreland. The train line dictated the development of the golf course, and the Belfast Railway made the stop in Newcastle, which is
the village of County Down beside. It made that a terminus kind of maybe a few years before, and they were so in lockstep with each other of the golf course and indeed, the town and the train station that the government slash train station and Royal County down actually came together to build a room for the use of golfers at the train station. That's how we boxed up. Yeah, and they I think I maybe paid half and a half for the upkeep of it was shared, et cetera.
And you're right, like the I think the original Home Green, the eighteenth Green, was down on the currents side of the sleeved Honnerdt Hotel, So you're right. It started way further down, finished further down, and it bore no resemblance the current golf course at all. So this is eighteen ninety and then again between eighteen ninety two and eighteen ninety four they rebuilt six new holes in and got
rid of some others. So we've had three or four already major iterations of the golf course and we're only four four and a half years in. And then, like all great golf courses and the there was a benevolent dictator, you know, like there was The more I think about it, so many great golf courses, mainly in America, have been shaped by benevolent autocrats. And there was fans at Oakmont and in later years Gerald Micklum made good changes at
Sunning Dealt. But there was a guy called George Coom and he was first noted to be around in the mid or sorry, the early eighteen nineties. But he was a gentleman of boundless energy. You found these people at the time who could turn their hand to anything, you know. And he gained a prominent position in world County down on the council I think it's called they called their committee, and he started changing the course I think in Earnest
in about nineteen hundred. He built many new new holes and he changed the rest so there was only six original holes left of the original golf course. And the golf course is up to fifty eight hundred yards, but descriptions of that course don't really exist. There's kind of yardages, etc. But at the same time he was also building the number two course, the Ansley Course are the number two.
Course, the Weak Course.
The Weak Course. So he was a busy guy. He was sure. He was honorary Secretary of the Golfing Union of Ireland and he did all sorts. But anyway, he wasn't a complete autocrat. Yet he got many people who he knew understood golf architecture to come over and have a look. He had Ben Sayers actually come over, and then he would carry out more changes and even paid for some of the changes out of his own pocket.
So he two more big changes, trunch of changes, the kind of nineteen two changes that he started in nineteen hundred, and then by nineteen oh eighty don it again, so we have big golf course sixty four hundred yards. And then obviously the most important thing that happened was that Harry Cold came over in nineteen twenty six. And this is just where the genius of County Down and the genius of Harry Cold comes out. And in a nutshell, what Harry Cold did was, first of all, he planted
all the gorse. There was no gorse in County Down before Harry Cold. So the fourth hole, as we know, one of the most honest biring part threes in the world. You've you've just got beaten up by the third and you step onto the forty and you're you're looking around trying to take it all in, and then you you know, you got to pick up a two hundred yard club and hit down to just one of the best best
golf holes in the world. But what Harry Colt did was that the old fourth hole was a hole that played in parallel, went back up beside the third up to kind of around the current fifth green, So it was a five hundred and twenty yard hold that kind of played along the rough corridor of what he built where the current fourth is and the current fifth. So he knocked that whole out the three shotter and put in the dog leg right fifth, but more importantly the fourth.
So immediately he was Harry Colt was always on the lookout for good bar threes. I think that's how he when he was called to port Rush. That's really what he did up there as well. He looked for the best sites for par threes, is what I understand, and then he worked off the rest and that was his first change on the front Niner County down, So he actually reduced It's hard to believe, but he reduced blindness
around the golf course as well. So we can only imagine the demands of the pre cold iteration.
Well, I mean, the site itself is naturally can do to blindness. You have massive, you have massive you know, dramatic dramatic sand dunes. I think, like you know, in terms of golf court, but they're well scaled sand dunes,
you know. I think like the thing that people will say is like, oh, the front nine at Port Stewart is as good as the front nine at Royal County Down, and I just disagree because the variety of the of the way that you interact with the sand dunes is the brilliance of Royal County Down is that you're you're playing through them, and I think like Port Stewart is I love that nine, but the dunes are so big that you can't play on top of them in the way that you play on top of them on six,
seven and eight at at at Royal County Down, you miss that like playing on on you know, the exposed center of it. At Port Stewart, you're always playing through them. So what I think the brillions of the cult iteration is the way that it interacts on the dunes, you know, the way it gets you you kind of wrap around them, play in them, and then you get on them and then you play off them.
You know. Yeah, I hadn't really thought about it like that. You're you're absolutely spot on. He so he obviously probably reduced playing through them on the first few holes and then made the best of them up on five, six, seven, eight, and nine. What I understand is what I understand is George Coom as well, our favorite benevolent dictator, also kind of reduced blindness. I think the first few holes genuinely played just straight over and straight over and through dunes.
That probably was not in the best way to play certain holes. So I think Komb had already started laying out the original playing corridors that the holes occupy, and by the time he was done in about nineteen o eight, the first in the eighteenth were parafise, so they were three shutters and the playing carriders were established. And then Colt obviously came in and as you just saw eloquently said, utilize playing off the dunes and the slopes rather than
egregious playing over them. So perfectly, that's exactly I think that's probably the fairest way to describe it. But I do think that this golf course, modern version of it was an awful lot to George Coop. But then what so what Gold did was and this is just the current eighth, which is just one of my favorite golf course, a murmer my favorite holes on the golf course. It's just at that time that was the seventh and it played.
The eighth plays up along the ridge. It's you know the ninth. You'll see everybody takes pictures of the ninth. The eighth is where it gets you to the ninth tee and it's I think it's probably one of the least talk about great holes at Royal County Down. It kind of plays on a diagonal off the tea and winds its way up to the top of the dune ridge.
Yeah, and I think big Part.
Four most exposed, most exposed to, most exposed shots maybe at Royal County Down.
Yeah, and kind of a tabletop green almost falls off on the right anyway. But what Cold did was that, as I was just saying, that was the seventh hole, and it used to finish down into the left, almost near the current first green I'd imagine in my head.
And then from there you played from down near that original green, you played back over at an angle over the current hill that you that the nine is so well known for in a blind Part three, and then you would go from behind that green and you would play over another sand hill that was there at the time to another green around the current nine green. So you two blind part threes, is that green?
Is that practice green an original green? If you look like my side have been the green.
You are correct. But I don't think that was actually the green for that just previously mentioned second blind part three, which occupied I think that was the green for another hole that was there in the in a more previous iteration in one of the.
Time it could have been an old I think I.
Think it could have. I think it could have, because I actually was just checking that last night. I don't think there was. I don't think the second line Parturie played to that because it played over it played to a green in sand Hills in which is currently gone, which has gone in the meantime. So I think the practice green, which certainly was a real green, was for
a different tole. But what he did then was so he obliterated that he moved the eighth green up or with the seventh hole at the time, up to the right onto this magnificent table top. And then you just walk from obviously so many or so many of your listeners will have just will know exactly where the ninth Green ninety is then straight behind the current eight green when you play the Magnificent Night. So Harry Colt created the modern eight, the modern Night, and indeed the modern Fort,
which is just pure genius. But he did it all through the garters which were previously established. After about seven or eight goes from all our various he mentioned pals, but you know where to start. But the front nine, it's just it's an endless hit list. Really, I think Andy so, but that's that was Harry Colt.
Yeah, Harry Colet. Obviously.
I think I recorded a pad years ago with Curtis James, who's the superintendent at at Old Elm, Harry Cole, one of the few Harry Colts in North America.
And uh and.
He said, I think this brilliantly is most Americans don't really know much about Harry Colt, but if you go over the UK, he's like Jesus.
Yeah. I just for a period of time when the screensaver on my phone was the Poe three the fourth hole at Swenley Forest, which I just couldn't get over. It's just so brilliant. I don't know, I don't think you've.
Ever played Swenley I have that yet.
There's that silly old quote that he called it it's his least bad course, but it's just it's it's a brilliant monument. Was that the quote they said about port Rush him he doesn't need a brass statute is port Rush is his monument.
So I think I think what he did at Port Rush is so different than at at Royal County Down. I think at the green, I think the greens are pretty simple at Royal County Down, but then you go to you go to Port Rush and they are like these beautiful intricate.
Greens with like some really.
Wonderful contouring, you know, different pockets, and but Royal County Down I think like it's I don't know what makes what do you think makes Royal County Down so challenging? Because I think it's like from a from a sheer challenge right there with Port Rush, Like I would almost venture to say that Royal County Down might be more challenging than Port Rush.
I think Royal County Down is way more challenging than Port Rushian. But first of all, it was a guy called Anthony Babbington who bought cold to port Russian. Again, they had a very rudimentary golf course. But I think that was Cold genius. He recognized the land, the topography of Port Rush. Obviously it was rolling in a sense. You know, I wouldn't describe World County Down as rolling, and he perhaps he created the greens a little bit
more rolling fashion. Whereas if you think, if you think about the third hole of rold County Down, if I was to be laconic in my in my language, I would say that two good shots will sort you out at the third at County Down, because when you get there, the green is relatively open, simple, somewhat inviting, but the challenge is before and Cold knew that, you know, so that that's part of his genius. There's no overdoing it.
We talked about Simpson and his restraint at Baltray, but really, why do I think I suppose your question was why do I think it's so challenging. I think this it is very, very broad. It's so beastly in every term that the rough is absolutely brutal at times. The gorse planted by Colt as well. I know last time I was up there was about a year ago that cut back some of the course, but it's an incredibly challenging golf course, and there are many parallels to Pine Value
with the strength of the t shots. If you hit it five or ten yards right on the third which is again four hundred yards plus, there's deep, deep bunkers that I don't think, for example, when Americans come over here, I don't think they've ever played out of the surrounds of a bunker like they played out at the third hole on the fair way of World County Down. You can take five or six swipes. It's something that's caught up on that marton grass and be there all day.
You know, there is there is nothing like that challenge and you were in the world really and I think the amount of trouble you can get yourself in between green and tea is unrivaled in world golf really too.
Yeah, yeah, you know, I think like from first glance, it doesn't feel that demanding off the tea, like there's space there is, But when you throw in the wind and the firm when especially firm conditions and wind, it becomes like very clear that it is a like you you need to drive it extraordinarily well here.
Yeah, like it's if you look at and obviously just to bring it up again. I play my golf for Port Marnock and Port Marnik appears kind of tied off the tee, but if you miss it left or right you're generally okay. But there's no marim grass with the volume and the texture like there is a Royal County Down. There are no You can be up against the base of a hill on the third of Royal County Down if you hit a long drive up the left, you know, you think you've done all the hard power.
Not a good spot.
You know you can be to use your pend there twice to use your.
Parallel so you can be jammed hard, you know.
So you're not enjoyed over there.
Yeah, there's all the other golf courses in Ireland. If you hit a good law drive you're generally okay. But golf is natural and it's not supposed to be fair, you know. So I think this is where County Down wins out. The same give you said of the fifth hole, for example, which is a lovely dog leg used of a square green. Actually so a picture from nineteen thirty four a day use of a perfectly square green, almost like the the Philly Cricket Club the second course there
Martin Saint Martin's, Yeah, which had a US open. I think, but if you miss any of these fairways, even though you said the playing carders are white, they are wide, but they're they're a different character off the farewell than they are at Port Mark or Port Rush or Lane
for example, very very different. Lane has contouring and undulation like Royal County Down, but its penalties for missing the fairways are more consistent with the type of rough that you see across Ireland, which can be a decent blend of escue, but there is mareon grass I think, Andy, to answer your question about the difficulty of Royal County Down, that's not appreciated anywhere else on the island. That's what I'd run it back to.
I feel like, you know, if I was going to use a descriptor for Royal County Down and why I find.
It to be difficult. So tough is like it's like a raw golf.
You you just are like the elements and whether it be on the ground elements like the dunes and the contours you're facing like, you know, you have these big features, but then in the fairways there are a lot of small features that kind of can can get you in bad spots and feel uncomfortable, you know, where you have like slight side hills and you're hitting into these small,
small green targets and the wind's blowing hard. But it's just like a very raw place to play golf, Like you are just you're not going out there, you're like going out there and you know you're going it's almost like you feel like you're going to war with just the.
But that's exactly it. Earlier on when we were chatting, I said, I think it's the best natural golf course in the world, and I really thought about that that phrase, because that's what it is. You know, there is just so little manufactured about it, and there's other golf courses that are in the top bucket that just don't feel like that, you know. I think that's what I think. Countydown is completely unique and it's how natural it is.
Well that's why, yeah, I might I might say I think where when you get off the fifteenth hole, you kind of leave that and that might be why people don't love the.
Last three holes.
That, yeah, is that I think it loses the plot on the naturalness a little bit.
Okay, Yeah, they're they're off discussed. I think I think the best one to start to it is seventeen. I hear a lot of people knock seventeen, and I actually quite like seventeen.
I really like, I say, that's the best of the three finishers.
It is, but I actually think it's quite a good hole. And now obviously I'm not sure if you if you ever saw pictures or whatever, but they're used to a pond in the middle of the seventies.
It was like a natural spring, right, It's.
An true spring, I think. And now maybe there was drainage issues, but they filled it in and they have a waste area there, but like I.
Odd odd of waste area, you know, I'm I'm you know, you don't have any of any anything that looks anything like it for sixteen holes and on the vast majority.
Of the week course, yeah, I suppose.
And then you just like come up, come up on this like very it feels very made. That doesn't it doesn't feel natural. But I think like the t shot there and the approach are extremely high caliber shots. It's just this weird to me, a weird pit in the in the farewell.
And to play Devil's advocate for a second and at least so some people would say it's not a binary hazard, you can recover from it, et cetera. And maybe they had some sort of drainage issues, Andy, But I liked I actually quite liked the old pond because there was nothing like it. It was offering an unusual challenge in so far as I was saying, can you hit the ball this far or if you hit a little bit further you'll paid the penalty. And there's not that many
type there's not many. First of all, in country lend there's very little of that challenge. Obviously all approach shots are that challenge. But in the world golf, there's very few challenges like that left where someone is asking you to actually hit the ball at certain distance off the tee with wood club. So that was kind of unusual in this day of bomb and gouge, where you were being asked to just consider a little bit of restraint because you were faced to the binary you know, one
shot penalenty or two shot plenty or whatever. So I didn't really mind it. I do appreciate that it's easier to play the hole, but as you've said, I think this is I it's a little out of keeping, but you know, the green is just magnificent. The bunker on the right of the green, which I found myself in many times, it's really hard to get out of. It's very narrow green as lovely cant from left to right. So I'm all in on the seventeenth, you know, as I've said, I do. I quite like the quirk of
the pond. But I think the sixteenth is I've been trying to study a little bit recently. The sixteenth is for the listeners is three hundred and thirty five forty part four that runs the same direction as the fifteenth and more or less the same direction as the seventeenth. In its place before was a tea. It was a whole landy that was a very short driveable part four, and it was changed for the Walker Cup in about
winter two thousand and five two thousand and six. So you used to come off the fifteenth green and go up left, and then you kind of played slightly across the new hole, kind of towards almost towards the seventeen tease simple hole. But you know, the interesting thing about simple holes is the eight intes Saint Andrews is a simple golf hole, and it makes good players angry if they don't burn it, So there's nothing wrong with a
simple hole. And then obviously the the views probably behind that, because you know that to the right of seventy isn't exactly spectacular more mountain, so the views were probably an issue and all sort of challenge for the Walker Cup, and maybe pace. The play on a two hundred and forty yard hole for the members every week was also probably slowed up. So in this winter of two thousand and five they changed that hole to make it this three hundred and forty yard hole playing kind of straight up.
And Donald Steel was the architect who built it.
It was deal and I love a good short part four, but it's not quite driveable. I had a good go out of a couple of years ago. I suppose that the I would just say that I think it's it's limited and options off the tee. I think the layup is actually quite hard on the left and it doesn't reward you that well because the green is still very
hard to hit. You've did a deadly bitch to hold the green and almost there's a I think maybe when it was built there was a kind of a separate fairway down on the right, which is actually the optimum place to kind of approach trum, so that the green is then up on your left, but that's been grown in by rough and I think there's a couple of bunkers there, so in reality you're kind of forced up the left a little bit. So if I was playing a week in week out, I would never go for it.
And I think that the lay up on the left is actually into quite a small area, and I just think that, you know, maybe, and it's a very very tricky green. It would be so interesting to be there at the time to see if they could have retained the original sixteenth old because the green is down and right, like you know, there's all these sort of questions after but it's just it's a very tricky, drivable part four that doesn't give me two options many options in my head.
So if I was playing it week in week out, I'd probably kind of dragging at the five iron and hitting it up the left. So I don't know what your take on it is.
I you know, it's definitely it's probably my least favorite hole out there. I think what like maybe I don't know for pulse is the right word. But the what bothers me the most is the green and the homogeneous bunkering. Okay, the two the two fronting bunkers that are almost symmetrical. It was like they were just like copy and pasted to me the golf course. It just it's very clear. I think this is probably you know, the worst thing when you do renovation work on a historic golf course
is like that hole. You get to it and it's very clear that that's not an original golf hole, Like whether you read something or not, like it's like, okay, this has been changed because the bunkering and everything just screams nineteen nineties.
You know it is.
And I think that this is my same complaint with the eighteenth. It's just over bunkerd It's there's bunkers everywhere. They're seemingly formulaic in appearance. They just you know, check her the right and left sides of the fairways all the way down the hole. And I think, like to me that that hole, the sixteenth, if you took away the front right bunker, would be way better because then it's like, okay, if I play, if I take this on,
I have a path to the green. But if I play left, then I have I have to go over the bunker.
So this, yeah, like you're the you're the real calf of architecture expert here. But what I always thought that whole was what I always thought of it that hole was I'd love the option to be able to chip a ball up or run a ball up from the right. It's links golf, and I'd love to be able to run a ball in hard turf if I hit it nicely, play shot down the right up the green. That would just give me so much joy. So you're focusing on the bunkers and I you know, and I agree, they're
a little bit for me. Lake. I just like I'd love to see more option around the green.
I like the idea.
Yeah, I like the idea of the right fairway to what you what you said like that hole would get a lot more interesting, I think to me, I would looking at the hole, I would just hit driver every time.
Would you You're a better driver than me. But I just.
Think I think i'd take the chips around the green, knowing like I'm twenty yards around the green.
You know, quite tight up there, Andy, I think it's quite tight on the left as well. Is it's what I all see when I look at it. Hit a little pole. This is why my mind works with the left. But it just you can be again, you can be kind of like the third hole after a good drive. You can be up against it a little bit. You can run the room pretty quickly there.
Maybe it's the roughest down, but I hit it right and thought it was pretty pretty simple to get up and yeah, up and down from right.
I think. I think in the initial period after building, I think they did maybe soften the green or something like that, but I would have loved it. I never played the old hole andy, and I'm always thinking about going left after fifteenth is such a nice idea and kind of playing across as well, because then you're getting a different look and it doesn't bother me if the backdrop to that old hole, which is kind of playing
towards the seventeen t I imagine, isn't so good. And I think a simple golf hole is often a good one. And mentioned the eighteenth at Saint Andrews, but.
Yeah, eighteenth at North Berrick, eighteenth.
At North Berwick. Yeah, there's so many of them, so many of them. But I just yeah.
The real thing with sixteen and eighteen to me is just less is more with them, you.
Know, like eighteen.
It feels like there's more bunkers on eighteen than the rest of the golf course. I know that's that true, but that's the way it feels when you stand on that tea.
Yeah, I've always thought that. I always thought that it was asking you, in fairness, it's asking you test a question of execution, like a straight shot. But then I think I wouldn't say I'm a problem with it. But I always thought the green was a little skinny for someone taking on the second shot, and it's very tight down there. There used to be actually out of bounds behind the whole, very very tight, and I think Cole got rid of that. But it's quite a skinny green.
I think it's more designed to almost take a third shot. And I'm not sure what work was done on it, but I think it's a really, really kind of high risk shot if you're coming in with a three or er or two urn or whatever. So I agree with you about the bunkering being kind of off, and I can't remember if it's quite symmetrical or asymmetrical. I agree
it's probably over bunkered. But I think as you approach the green, I would you know, I would love to see something a bit more open and flowing and less skinny, is how I describe it.
And I do, yeah, I do like the green in the sense of like the way it kind of runs off on each side, like that narrow green. But I just it's the bumkers that lead into it, like do you know, I don't know.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, but I think that andy up around the green. When it falls off again, it kind of ball doesn't really go anywhere. It's into quick bowls, you know. So it's you have a very steep incline, so you probably put her one to seven or not. But I would like to see it, obviously in the modern vogue of architecture, flowing off a little bit more. And I appreciate that probably won't happen around there because of concerns for space. It's quite close to a lot of things.
It's quite close to the clubhouse and whatnot and everything. And I suppose the out of bounds was got rid of for a reason there and they want to contain things. But you know, when I think about Royal County down, I think certainly, no matter what you think about sixteen, seventeen or eighteen, the sheer glory of the golf course
is just something that can't be matched anywhere else. Maybe Cyper's Point, which I haven't played with, might match for natural setting, Point Valley might match it for shot value, shot execution perfection. But Pine Valley is not as natural as Royal County Down. It sits alone. And you know, we haven't even discussed how good those holes and the Ansley Course are behind the fourth hole that Martin Lieber wilt, those three holes, they're really really good, interesting golf holes.
And the Ansley Course is a brilliant accompaniment course.
I think it's the best short course in the world.
I think, yeah, I like so many golf courses that are top tier in America have two courses, or you know,
they have one course and brilliant practice facilities. But port America has the Yellow nine, County Down has the andlier the number two course, and then Port Russia has done loose And even if you are at the Valley, and then if you play Enniscron on the West coast, I'm pretty sure there's another there's another golf course out onto the left of Enniscrown, So you know, that's something we do well over here, and that golf course is built.
I think the Ladies Club, which came into being not long after County Down came into being played over that and George Coomer dictator again was responsible for that. But to have that on your on your as yours your second course, and I know a lot of people go there don't play it, so they're missing out big time. And the same same occurs for Portmerica. I don't think we got to play the Yellow nine when you were over.
But those sorts of things are really special. And you know, if places busy, you go out and you have some fun with friends, and you know, and when County Down is such a hard golf course as well, as we've talked about so for so long here and it really is so hard that you need that kind of contrast at County Down, I think. So that's just that's just something else that really keeps it up into the amount of rushmore bucket of golf courses from me, Andy, I
think it's there's so much good there. But I do think when I when I the more I think about it, the simplicity of the greens and compared to the I call it lack of internal intrigue. But that's necessary in port in County Down, whereas what cult did it? Port Rush with just lovely gentle weaving slopes wouldn't work it County Down.
Really, it'd be too much. It'd be too much.
I love. I think if I had to pick, I'll put you on the spot and minu I'll give you
two seconds to think about it. But if I did think about my top three things about world County Down, I'd say the feeling of just hitting your drive on the second and coming over or even the eleventh, the second or the eleventh and the air just coming back into your lungs after you see your ball being okay or wherever it is, or figuring out if you blind semi blind shot into the second or you're blocked out on the right you've pushed it on eleven or whatever.
I think that's really high up there, and I don't think people will probably plump for that, but I do. It's just, you know, and this is some from someone who doesn't really love blind shots, so that's special, you know.
I love that. I think the eighth toll, as I mentioned, is off the charts for me, and I love thinking about the sheer simplicity of how cult did thats my moving one up and then moving the green up and right, and then getting rid of those two rudimentary part of threes and giving the world eight and nine, and then well, I haven't really thought of the third, but I said I'd better come up with three. I love looking back up the first toll, turning backwards, something you don't do
in any of the first hole in the world. I don't think you're always looking forward in life, and you're always looking forward around the golf, but I love to look back on the first to county down.
Those are your three. I'll try and go with three different ones here. I love the approach to the sixth. Everybody talks about seven and how demand that is, but like, to me, the six is like a terrifying shot. It's kind of your first one where you're up and exposed. So I think, like the you know, you get used to, like you kind of get used to environments on a golf course. I find it's always hard hardest the first shot in an environment, and that one you're up so
high and the green. I think it's the smallest green on the golf course.
It's brilliant, I mean, and it.
Runs off in every direction. It's just an extremely demanding shot. That's a brilliant short four.
It is a brilliant short for just to just interrupt you very quickly. I hit it on a playpoint valley, hit it into the bunker in the first hit it out and had fifty yards into the first toll, and I was looking at this pitch and I got this green is so skinny and falls off everywhere that if I don't hit a really good pitch, I'm screwed. And that is exactly the shot you have into the sixth
of Royal County down as well. You'll hit a five r after tea in a wedge and you just gotta nail it, and there's so much going on in your head, and yeah, it's just brilliant.
And so strong when you're up there. That one, to me, I think the ninth t shot. I mean, it's the obvious one. It's like one of the most thrilling shots in all of golf. You know, you're just it's just so beautiful hitting over that. I think, like the thing that kind of surprised me about that whole seeing all the pictures, Like the stuff that I didn't understand was like, how if you push it right you'll get blind by
that dune, Like and I think that's really cool. And just how all the slope, because that green's built into the dune, all the slope just pushes it so hard left, like being right there and taking that safe line off the tee is really it's not a great it's a it's a bit of a spot of bother, but then left, like you can get yourself in a lot of trouble if you get too far left, like certainly, and I think three, I think just going down into the valley
on thirteen, it's just one of the coolest moments in the round. It's kind of the end of the really epic dune dune escape area and it's just such a like it's such a gentle It's not gentle in the sense it's this extremely hard hole, but it's just such a gentle.
You're you're you're shielded, you're.
Kind of unexposed in that that gorse we got it in full bloom was just like it's just I'll never forget that image in my head of Royal County down is that Valley of Gorse and the thirteenth just going down in that tunnel.
It's so beautiful down there.
But you can really see Andy who obviously the members when they play their hot on the Wednesday or Saturday, and they play so much forceomes because it's so hard. Yeah, you know, and like Great Britain in Ireland, golf is it's a different animal to golf in the States. I really think it's an acquired taste. We grew up playing it here. We absolutely love it, but I appreciate might not be for everyone. But there's you know, score doesn't matter too much. We play matches and then, funnily enough,
all our club championships. I mentioned my Palo won the club championship at a Royal county in on a few ago, but they actually tendend to be the reverse. We play thirty six sols strokes in most club championships and we play play all our kind of casual matches, but we play these lump championships over thirty six holds off the back teas at Portmarnica Role you Down or Port Rush, and they're just absolutely brutal. You know, if you hit one bad drive you're making an eight or a nin
er a day. But I do think it's a different sport, and I think i'd love to hear when people come here and eat all these American visitors and people from far away, and I hope they I hope they get it, because it's I think it's a different sport almost to golf in America, and I think that everyone should. One visit is good and two is even better, you know, and you really begin to enjoy these things on repeat plays so much in places like World County down and
there's such a different culture of golf up here. They you know, they're unchanged in so many ways, and they have this magnificent, magnificent course to play over. I really just I think that I really hope, first of all, that a lot of people will watch this event. I hope that the weather is good. Sarren Kelson one with two hunderd and twenty fifteen. Yeah, it's And I was looking back over some of the scores of the as you said about our Irish Amateur golf, So they hosted
the Irish Amateur Opening. It's twenty seventeen or eighteen back to back. Remember I saw Matt Jordan came forth. He's obviously become quite a good tour player. You know, good players went at these things and come top four or five. But the scores are so hard, and that's why we're golf over here is molded by that. You know, you can chuck away the scorecard sometimes unless you're playing the Chub Championship. But it's a treat. It's just a it's a different sport and I'm glad you guys enjoyed it
when you were over here. I know you got pretty bad weather at times, but that's the fun of it.
You know, We've got a great epic day at Road County down, you know, did you Okay?
It was unbelievable morning.
It got a little gnarly at the end of the day, but it was you know, sun was out and it's beautiful. It was amazing. So hey, Dara, thank you for coming on. How do people find you if they want to talk more about Irish golf with you?
I'm on Instagram, Dara p Gary He so they'll find me on that, and then I'm on Twitter, all under the same name, and I can be always led upon to be just I love it when people want to talk about links golf, for anything about the historical nature of Artish calf, for GB and I golf, anything to do with amateur golf. Really, Andy, that's why I jammed you with the crumb cup at the start. You know, that's that's my wheel that's my wheelers. I wasn't gonna
let you out away with that. I know the saw Him cup is on, but what a week.
We have lots of cups, lots of cups up this week there.
Is yeah, yeah, And anyway, look, I'll looking forward to reporting back after Saturday. I can't wait to go up and hope you get some time with your coffee in the morning to watch some golf as well.
I've got I've got the alarm set.
It's going to be you know, my wife, by my wife is gonna be like, what what the what the aff are you doing?
Why are you agreed?
Egregiously, earlier I would say that's it is.
It is all right. Thanks so much, Dara. We'll we'll talk soon and hopefully see you soon.
Yeah, hopefully see you soon. Thanks Andy, Bye bye.
Thank you for listening to another edition of the fridayk Golf Podcast.
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