Carne Golf Links (Wild Atlantic Dunes)

Undisturbed mountainous dunes in the tiny town of Belmullet in County Mayo, a five-hour drive from Dublin, created a stunning pallet for Eddie Hackett to design what was once one of golf’s best hidden gems. Hackett employed local farmers with shovels and rakes to ensure the dunes wouldn’t be disturbed, and eight years later, the first nine holes opened. A year later, a second nine was added. Jim Engh, an American architect, discovered Carne several years after that and became a member. He routed nine new holes through the site’s enormous unused dunes, which Irish designer Ally McIntosh completed in 2020 with his own alterations. These new holes combine with the original Hackett holes to make the Wild Atlantic Dunes 18, a course so surreal it’s no longer a hidden gem but a destination of its own.