Best in Every Country
The best golf courses in Ireland
The Island Golf Club, just north of Dublin, boast some of Ireland's most dramatic dunescapes.
Courtesy of the club
It’s a good and worthy debate: Who has the better links courses, Scotland or Ireland? If it can’t be answered decisively, we should at least acknowledge that the courses from each country are different.
In general, the links of Scotland are subdued, embedded with small intricacies, sly strategies and dunes that only occasionally rise to the level of Herculean. Ireland’s links are wild and wooly, bouncy and rugged. Some of golf’s biggest dunes are found in the country’s north at places like Carne and Enniscrone. You can get lost in there, or at the very least spun around and made dizzy.
Moving south toward Lahinch, Ballybunion and Waterville the dunes get smaller but are by no means small—they are still some of the most impressive and exciting in the game. Though not a links, Old Head, due south, is one of the most audacious settings for a golf course on planet Earth, a one of one. And even Ireland’s west coast, north and south of Dublin, is stocked with some of the sport’s most underappreciated links like The European Club, County Louth and The Island.
Does it add up to what Scotland offers? Some say yes, some say no, but there’s no debate that links golf in Ireland is anything less than rip-roaring fun.
We urge you to click through to each individual course page for bonus photography, drone footage and expanded reviews. Plus, you can now leave your own ratings on the courses you’ve played … to make your case why your favorite should be ranked higher.
Editor's Note: Our Best Courses in Ireland ranking is part of Golf Digest's rollout of the Best Courses in Every Country. Check back over the next few weeks for more of our rankings of the best golf around the world.
More from Golf Digest
Ian Cronin/Courtesy of the club
The Killarney Golf and Fishing Club is located on Lough Leane in Killarney National Park north of Corkscrew. Killarney Golf and Fishing Club is home to multiple championship level golf courses, including the Killeen, a six-time host of the Irish Open. Originally designed in 1972 by Eddie Hackett and Bill O’Sullivan, the course has since undergone two updates—one by David Jones in 1991 and another by Donald Steele in 2006. The course features tree-lined fairways and water on almost every hole, as well as beautiful views into the backdrop of the Macgillycuddy Reek Mountains. The front nine at Killeen is known for its opening stretch highlighted by the par-3 third with water surrounding the right side, as well as the par-4-fourth with hazards running the entire length of the right side. The back nine at Killeen features the exciting par-3 10th with a long, forced carry over water short of the green and is capped off by the downhill par-4 finishing hole overlooking the clubhouse behind and the long snaking water hazard to the left. Located over an hour from Cork and just under four hours from Dublin, the Killeen at Killarney marries isolated natural beauty with championship golf.
Explore our full review
Gary Lisbon
Though the club was founded in 1885 (and received its Royal status in 1891), the course the club now plays dates to a 1919 redesign by British architect Harry Colt, who revamped the layout after it had been decimated by military use during World War I. The club is located on Bull Island in Dublin Bay, which was created by dredging the waterway, so the soils are pure sand and populated with seaside grasses and hummocks. The course is a cross between a links and golf in the savannah, with largely flat holes that run out and back through fescue fields parallel to the marsh side of the island. The final three holes are a resounding climax and include a drivable par 4 through a network of pot bunkers, a long par 4 with a burn running tight down the right side and one of the most unique holes in the country, the long par-4 18th that bends 90-degrees around the burn, requiring players to hit their second shots over the L-shaped ditch and the out-of-bounds field on the other side of it if they hope to reach the green in regulation. Architects Frank Pont and Mike Clayton completed a bunker renovation in 2023.
Explore our full review
Courtesy of the club
Public
23. Druids Glen Hotel & Golf Resort: County Wicklow
Newtownmountkennedy, Co. Wicklow, Ireland
Druids Glen Golf Course was designed by Pat Ruddy and Tom Craddock in 1995 and underwent an extensive renovation that was completed in 2023. The immaculately manicured and colorful Druids Glen Golf Course has played host to four Irish Opens on the DP World Tour has been touted as the Augusta National of Ireland. Located 30 minutes from Dublin in Wicklow County, the course plays through rolling hills, towering trees and around snaking water hazards, while also showing off views of the Atlantic Ocean and Wicklow Mountains. Druids Glen is most famous for its Amen Corner-style stretch in the heart of its back nine. The stretch begins at the par-3 12th, which is modeled after Golden Bell at ANGC. The green is protected by dangling trees and an ancient Druid altar behind the putting surface. No. 13 at Druids Glen is a brutally difficult par 4 and follows almost the exact routing of Azalea at Augusta National. Equally as exciting at Druids Glen is the two-hole finishing stretch, which displays two greens isolated by water at the 203-yard par-3 17th, as well as the 450-yard par-4 finishing hole. Druids Glen provides a memorable target-golf experience with scoring available for those who find the fairways and the receptive greens.
Explore our full review
For the first eight decades of its existence, Dooks was an off-the-beaten-path nine-hole course, among the oldest in Ireland. Ireland’s patron saint of golf architecture, Eddie Hackett, one of the profession’s true minimalists who designed and expanded courses all over the country on shoestring budgets, added a second nine in the 1970s. This set the stage for Dooks becoming a destination for American players traveling between Tralee and Waterville beginning in the 1980s and 1990s when golf tourism in Ireland exploded. Dooks still feels like a small-town country course, situated on the Atlantic Ocean with holes the cut back and forth over a piece of sublime, subtle linksland.
Explore our full review
Courtesy of the club
Portsalon Golf Club opened in Donegal, Ireland in 1891 and is located on the shores of Ballymastocker beach between the scenic Knockalla mountains and Inishowen hills. The club, a founding member of the Irish Golfing Union, was originally designed by Charles Thompson before Pat Ruddy oversaw renovations in 2000. The front nine at Portsalon Golf Club features elevated tee boxes and holes that snake through sand dunes showcasing views of the ocean, highlighted by the 500-yard par-4 second, which appears to disappear into the beach and the estuary running along the hole. The second nine at Portsalon Golf Club routes players back into higher ground, while still providing views of the ocean. The signature of the back nine is the par-4 14th—one of five original holes—which entices players with a downhill winding fairway framed by the sea in the backdrop. Though Portsalon Golf Club is four hours from Dublin and 90 minutes from Derry, this former hidden gem is now on the map and well worth the trek to Northwest Ireland.
Explore our full review
Courtesy of the club
The Palmer Course at The K Club (short for Kildare Club) is one of Ireland’s most established professional tournament courses and has been the site of the 2006 Ryder Cup as well as multiple European and Irish Opens. It was designed by Arnold Palmer’s design firm in the early 1990s on a 550-acre site that also encompasses a luxury resort hotel and second Palmer-designed course. The course is American in style with holes that dogleg through groves of hardwoods and shapely Palmer-esque bunkers. Holes seven, eight and 17 play alongside the River Liffey, but the strength of the design are the gambling par 5s that give power players the chance to go low, including the make-or-break 18th with 14 bunkers lurking along the route and a green protruding into a lake.
Explore our full review
More from Golf Digest
Laurence Lambrecht/Courtesy of the club
Ballyliffin Golf Club sits on the Northwest coast of Donegal, Ireland along the Atlantic Ocean on dramatic, rolling dunesland with mountains in the background. The club is the northernmost golf course in the country, located 45 minutes from Derry and just over four hours from Dublin. The Glashedy Course at Ballyliffin was designed by Pat Ruddy and Tom Craddock in 1995 with Ruddy making amendments to bunkering and other areas in 2012 and 2017 culminating in the course hosting the Irish Open in 2018. The Glashedy course is a championship-caliber test, measuring 7,542 yards and featuring nine par 4s over 400 yards. Conditions at the Glashedy Course are challenging as they include penal bunkering as well as steep and sloping greens surrounded by tall and dramatic sand dunes. Relief here comes in the form of subtly sloping fairways that afford players the ability to attack difficult and slick greens. The signature hole at the Glashedy Course is the par-3 seventh—playing 174-yards downhill—revealing the vast floodplain and mountains in the backdrop.
Explore our full review
Courtesy of Steve Carr/The Trump Organization
Doonbeg was an international sensation in 2002 as it was one of the first 18-hole Irish links to open in a generation. The site was magnificent, a mile and a half-long pocket of imposing dunes stretched out over the Atlantic Ocean beaches. It was also problematic since the dunes were full of environmentally protected snails, limiting where the golf could be built. It forced the routing of the holes into some awkward corners that resulted in long walks back to tees and several hole crossovers that were either charming or dangerous depending on your tolerance for quirk and safety. Still, course designer Greg Norman was able to get the golf close to the ocean often enough to make Doonbeg one of Ireland’s great visceral pleasures thanks to outstanding links holes like the par-5 first playing into an amphitheater of steep sand hills, the par-4 sixth running the length of the beach, the oceanfront par-3 ninth and the par-3 14th playing down to a green situated against the sea. These more than offset a series of lesser inland holes that were manufactured from flat farmland. Over the years, work has been done to remove some of the blindness and initial severity of the course, but the biggest change was the addition of the enormous hotel constructed six years after Doonbeg opened.
Explore our full review
LC Lambrecht/Courtesy of the club
Rosapenna Golf Resort is located in Donegal, Ireland, an hour from Derry and two hours from Belfast. The Sandy Hills course at Rosapenna is one of three stunning courses and was designed by the team of Pat Ruddy and Frank Casey Sr. in 2003 before Beau Welling made adjustments in 2013. The design team carved the Sandy Hills course through towering sand dunes resulting in dramatic elevated playing surfaces that feature panoramic views of the Atlantic Ocean. The front nine is highlighted by the par-4 sixth showing off SheepHaven Bay and Muckish mountain as well as the downhill par-3 seventh tucked into dunes and protected by a penal pot-bunker. The second nine is known for the par-4 10th that turns toward the water and plays down into a valley of sand dunes and then to an elevated green with a view of the mountains in the background. The course is known to be difficult, featuring challenging sightlines, penal beachgrass and fast sloping wind blown greens.
Explore our full review
Courtesy of the club
Facts first: The Island isn’t actually located on an island but rather at the south end of an isthmus just north of Dublin. The links do feel remote and isolated, bordered on two sides by water—the Irish Sea to the east and a large bay on the west—as well as a marshy estuary to the south. The coastal dunes are some of the steepest on Ireland’s east coast and feel more like what golfers encounter in County Sligo or County Donegal to the north. That’s why many visitors often cite The Island as their most surprising discovery when playing in Ireland. There’s an almost prehistoric aura about the course as the spacious holes wander through valleys between dunes and hop from high point to high point over sand barrens. Amateurs laid out the original holes in the 1890s when members accessed the course by boat. When the clubhouse moved in the 1970s the holes were renumbered along with remodel work by Irish architect Eddie Hackett. In 2020, British architects Tom Mackenzie and Martin Ebert completed their first nine renovation, including the construction of several new holes like the eighth and ninth (to go along with the sporty par-3 fourth added in 2009), to match the quality to the second nine, long regarded as the stronger of the two.
Explore our full review
Jacob Sjöman/Courtesy of the club
A departure from other great European courses that are accessible to the public, Hogs Head Golf Club has successfully implemented an American-style of private-club exclusivity in one of the most golf rich parts of the world. Not far from Waterville, Hogs Head is owned by highly successful American corporate restructurers Tony Alvarez II and Bryan Marsal, who also own and operate Paako Ridge in New Mexico. Hogs Head boasts a Robert Trent Jones Jr. design that gets its name from its location on the magnificent Hogs Head peninsula (a marine bearing point marking the opening to the Ballinskelligs Bay from the North Atlantic). It’s a unique routing with five par 3s and five par 5s, including a Biarritz green on the sixth hole, believed to be the only par-5 Biarritz green in Europe. After a few years of allowing outside play like other European courses, Hogs Head now only allows four unaccompanied rounds a day—which must be sponsored by one of their members, known as Hogs.
Explore our full review
Courtesy of the 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.
Explore our full review
Courtesy of the club
The Old Links at Ballyliffin opened in 1973 and was designed by the team of Eddie Hackett, Charles Lawrie, and Frank Pennick. Nick Faldo coined the Old Links at Ballyliffin “the most natural golf course in the world.” Faldo oversaw renovations to the course in 2006, which included adding new seventh and eighth holes, as well as routing a new 13th into the surrounding floodplain. The course now evokes a feeling of pure links golf with heavily pitched fairways, rolling dunes, fierce wind and stunning views of the Atlantic Ocean and mountains in the background. The signature hole on the front nine at the Old Course is the par-3-fifth, The Tank, playing uphill to a green protected on three sides by sand dunes. The back nine at the Old Course is more challenging as well as pleasing to the eye, as the closing six holes play nearer to the water and provide a perfect balance of challenge and beauty to close out the round.
Explore our full review
Laurence Lambrecht/Courtesy of the club
Adare Manor was one of the last that Robert Trent Jones’ firm designed (he passed away, at age 93, in 2000). The course was laid out over an attractive country estate in County Limerick with holes that play on either side of the River Maigue. The property has been the site of a luxury hotel and was purchased a decade ago by an Irish billionaire who initiated a significant reinvestment, highlighted by Tom Fazio’s remodel of the course. Fazio works primarily domestically and only the most premium of commissions have motivated him to take on International work. Adare Manor fits the bill. The entire course was stripped and redesigned, including the installation of SubAir systems under the greens. The course has the reputation for being the finest conditioned in Ireland with a number of engaging holes that should produce excitement during the 2027 Ryder Cup. These include the par3- 16th with a 90-yard deep green (it can play to a four or five-club difference depending on the tee) and the par-5 18th where players will have to hit long approaches over the river if they want to get to the green in two.
Explore our full review
Undisturbed mountainous dunes in the tiny town of Belmullet in County Mayo, a five-hour drive from Dublin, created a stunning pallet for Eddie Haskett to design one of Ireland’s best hidden gems. Haskett 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 discovered Carne and added nine additional holes over a decade ago, giving this incredible setting 27 holes to reward those who make the journey.
Explore our full review
More from Golf Digest
Courtesy of the club
One of the newest courses to be built on genuine Irish linksland, The European Club is the lifetime accomplishment of Pat Ruddy, a golf writer from the 1960s and a golf architect from 1975 onward. He mortgaged his home to buy the land and spent five years designing and building it. It opened in 1992 and is still a family business today. Hard against the Irish Sea's Arklow Bay, European Club rolls across an untamed landscape with pot bunkers lined in railroad ties and two extra par-3 holes. The routing explores the diverse coastal dunes with returning nines, a marsh off the seventh tee and a burn looping in front of the 18th green with not a single blind shot anywhere. Ruddy, who tinkers with the course the way Donald Ross groomed Pinehurst No. 2, says he was once offered to sell it for 22 million pounds and passed. That makes the Irish design priceless.
Explore our full review
Evan Schiller/Courtesy of the club
Tralee, on rugged sand dunes astride Tralee Bay in the southwest corner of Ireland, has long been considered the finest design of Arnold Palmer. Working with architect Ed Seay (partner in Arnie’s design firm) and their associate Bob Walker, the layout was fashioned in the early 1980s in the same manner that Norman would later route Doonbeg, by locating greensites and then scouring the landscape to figure out natural fairways that would lead to them. Tralee is a captivating design, starting along high cliffs, like Pebble Beach, and finishing in high dunes similar to those found at No. 17 Ballybunion. Twelve years ago, Brandon Johnson added a new alternate par-3 seventh on land just crying out to be used as a hole. This is Tralee’s first ranking since 2018.
Explore our full review
Gary Lisbon
Significant work was done in 2014 to bring this gem on Ireland’s northwest coast up to the standards and demands of modern players. The old Colt course, set across beautiful links terrain, gained roughly 300 yards through the addition of new tees and green extensions (the par-5 third received an entirely new green 65 yards beyond where it was) along with numerous new fairway bunkers and several putting surface expansions. Holes 12 through 17 skirt the beach making for a lovely run of holes (the course is named for the peninsula of land that juts into Drumcliff Bay), but the real intrigue comes from a system of burns that meander in rhymeless direction through fairways and in front of greens.
Explore our full review
Nick Wall - Airswing Media
Enniscrone’s holes in the chop hills along Killala Bay—one through four and 11 through 18—are among the steepest and most breathtaking in golf. They were late in the making. Irishman Eddie Hackett had plans to turn them into spectacular seaside holes in 1974 when he expanded an 80-year-old existing nine that crossed over rather flat farmland well away from the water, but due to cost constraints he could only run his design partially into the foot of the dunes. Twenty-five years later British architect Donald Steel made good on Hackett’s vision when he was allowed to build holes through the deepest valleys and vales, creating a riveting closing stretch with the 14th, 15th, 16th and 17th greens set in the bluffs above the beach.
Explore our full review
Courtesy of the club
In the 1980s, the golf potential of this 220-acre swollen thumb of land poking into the Atlantic had many course architects excited. The job went to Ron Kirby, one-time design partner of Gary Player and former associate of Dick Wilson, Robert Trent Jones, and later, Jack Nicklaus. He consulted with Irish legends Paddy Merrigan, Eddie Hackett, Joe Carr and Liam Higgins. Kirby lived on the site for two years, determined to find an ideal routing that would maximize the rocky ocean cliffs that encircle the peninsula. It opened in 1996 with nine holes along ledges 300 feet above the surf. Kirby later returned to add a second nine, relocating the par-3 13th to cling along an ocean slope.
Explore our full review
COMPLETE RANKINGS
Courtesy of the club
Waterville has some superb dunes holes, next to the Ballinskelligs Bay, and several laid out in former potato fields. Original owner John Mulcahy and 1947 Masters champion Claude Harmon (Butch's dad) collaborated with Irish golf architect Eddie Hackett on the early 1970s design. A decade ago, Tom Fazio added new par-3 sixth and par-4 seventh holes and altered 13 others, adding new tees, greens and much-needed humps and bumps to the flattish front nine. The collection of par 3s is as strong as any in Ireland, highlighted by the “Mass” hole across a deep basin to a naked green and the 17th, “Mulcahy’s Peak,” playing toward a horizon along the bay.
Explore our full review
Clyde Johnson
It’s always been known that the dunes to the south of the original Rosapenna resort on Ireland’s northwest coast in County Donegal were some of the country’s most profound linksland, though the two original courses that had occupied them since the 1990s with slender, simple fairways running mostly in parallel directions never fulfilled that promise. It wasn’t until Tom Doak began reworking the land in 2019—eliminating most of the holes, maintaining the corridors of others and finding new territories of dunes and sand ridges to explore within the site’s 300 acres along Sheephaven Bay—that the land’s true potential was realized. Opened in 2021, the routing of each nine moves out through buffered channels toward the shore, utilizing broad, bouncy fairways that camber into greens that are either set in hollows or elevated on wind-battered bluffs. In buoyancy, variety and seaside topography, St. Patrick’s rivals the best of what Irish golf has to offer.
Explore our full review
Kevin Murray
A true links on rolling ground with soft rather than dramatic dunes, Portmarnock, on a spit of land in the Irish Sea north of Dublin, is known for its routing, which hasn't been altered in over a hundred years and was revolutionary at the time for constantly changing wind direction with every shot. The links is also known for its fairness, as nearly every feature is plainly in view from tee to green, which makes its maze of bunkers and subtle greens all the more testing.
Explore our full review
Photo by Stephen Szurlej
Considered by some to be the St. Andrews of Ireland, the splendid links at Lahinch reflects evolution in golf architecture. After Alister MacKenzie remodeled it in the 1920s, only a few of Old Tom Morris' original holes, like the Klondyke par-5 fourth, and Dell par-3 fifth, both with hidden greens, remained. In the 1980s, Donald Steel altered some of MacKenzie's holes and in the 2000s Martin Hawtree rebuilt everything and added four new holes. One classic MacKenzie par 3, the old 13th, is now a bye hole.
Explore our full review
Photo by David Cannon/Getty Images
Ballybunion has always been great, but it wasn't until they relocated the clubhouse in 1971 to the southern end that it became thrilling. Tom Watson’s effusive praise for the course after his first visit in 1981 also helped put the relatively unknown Ballybunion on everyone’s mind. The clubhouse move turned the old finish of anticlimactic back-to-back par 5s into the fourth and fifth holes and shifted the new closing holes to ones in spectacular dunes just north of the intersection of the Shannon River and the Atlantic Ocean. By then an honorary member, Watson suggested modest design changes in the 1990s, and later Martin Hawtree added new tees atop dunes on several holes.
Explore our full review
More from Golf Digest
• • •
Explore our brand-new course reviews experience with individual course pages for bonus photography, drone footage and expanded reviews of top international courses and all 17,000-plus courses in the United States. Post your own ratings for courses you’ve played … and tell us where it should be ranked.