County Louth Golf Club

County Louth, or Baltray, as it’s known, hits all the notes a great links course should. It starts and ends on subdued land near the adjacent agricultural fields, 35 miles north of Dublin. The holes then work into the larger sand hills next to the Irish Sea where the wind picks up and the ground becomes rumpled and sometimes blind. Deep pot bunkers with raised lips dot the landscape, and Baltray’s greens appear to swell and receded like the nearby ocean. The club was founded in 1892 but the essential course dates to 1938 when British architect Tom Simpson, designer of Morfontaine in France, remodeled it with Molly Gourlay. Learned travelers often cite Baltray as among the most underrated courses in Ireland.