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Ireland’s golf courses have been receiving many accolades in the past year and have even been regarded as one of the five best countries to golf in. Offering a variety of parkland and traditional link courses, you can pick blindly among the courses that dot the whole country and still get a great course to play in.

Many of these amazing golf courses have been the venue of international professional tournaments with its championship courses and great accommodations. The warm Irish welcome alone would make you feel right at home.

Its heritage in golf is unquestioned as a number of golf courses are “mature” dating back to the late 1800’s. One of these is the Cork Golf Club in Little Island, Co. Cork. Established in 1888, the Cork Golf Club was redesigned in 1927 by the renowned golf course designer Dr. Alexander Mackenzie, who designed also other famous golf courses like the Augusta National, Royal Melbourne and the Cypress point to name a few.

Throughout the course you will see many mature trees and various patches of gorse growing and making the course look more natural. The estuary of the River Lee, Lough Mahon provides the scenic Background that stretches on almost the entire course. Cork’s limestone quarry affects the course and provides a play that is similar links courses with its crisp heath like playing surface.

Like wine, the age of the Cork Golf Club has made it more palatable and more enticing to golfers. With finely manicured greens carpeting the par 72, 6,731 championship course, the Cork Golf Club course can offer the same if not better game play as any other premier golf course in Ireland and even the world.

But it’s not only the golf course that makes the Cork Golf Club a success and a favorite. Its clubhouse and other facilities as well are world class and have been handed with accolades by many golf enthusiasts and experts.

In 2004 alone, the prestigious All Ireland Award for Clubhouse presentation was given to the Cork Golf Club. Its deluxe and top quality service restaurant has a full bar and top notch dining facilities with fantastic food as well. It is open seven days a week and offers a great way to end a day of playing golf. In the clubhouse you will also find their roomy and well-designed changing rooms that have fantastic facilities for both members and visitors.

A bit of stretching, practice and warm up before the game? The Cork Golf Club also has practice facilities like a perfectly maintained and manicured putting green as well as a practice ground for your swings. There you will also have the chance to rent some clubs and, caddy and golf carts as well.

Then you can just go their Pro shop if you want to buy some souvenir shirts, caps, bags that have the clubs logo on it. You may also purchase any equipment you need to play your game. There you may also be able to get the chance to talk to the club pro for some pointers or enroll in some short classes to get some tips to improve your game.

Many people have grown a passion for golf. This has led them to grow the need to play challenging games to test themselves. Make a vacation out of that need, golf vacation spots in Ireland are abound and one of this is the Cork Golf Club.

Many Irish golf historians would agree that its vast number of golf courses is a direct influence of the stay of the British forces in the latter part of the 1800’s. Wherever there was a garrison stationed; the game of golf was surely to be played. That is why there are many golf courses in Ireland that is more than a century old yet provides modern facilities and technologies and has received many reconstruction to keep up with the modern times and to maintain its natural beauty.

But there is a golf links course at the edge of the northwest side of Ireland that has less history and age but is at par with the rest of them. Started in 1973, the Connemara Golf Links is a great challenge to anyone who swings their clubs at her greens. Bordered by the Atlantic Ocean and back dropped by Irish mountains, this par 72 links course provides an invigorating golf game that would surely entice those who have played there to come back for more.

Adding more elements to this memorable course is the breathtaking views that abound the entire 7,000 yard course. Raising from the Atlantic Ocean are mesmerizing rainbows that makes a golfer feel one with his surroundings.

The continual gusts of winds can be very refreshing, but they can also be the scourge for many golfers. A golfer can never expect the directions of the wind, much less the weather all year round.

The 27-hole Connemara championship golf links course shall also expose the golfer to many of natures wonders as Connemara ponies and swans can be seen and even a castle is bound to be seen as you play along. The course takes so many twists and turns as well as ups and downs through rocky and rolling hills with mesmerizing ocean and mountain scenes.

After a round of golf and viewing the scenery, a member or a golfer can go to the Connemara Golf Links clubhouse for more sightseeing as well as some fine dining. The clubhouse restaurant offers a wide array of Irish dishes as well as other dishes from around the world, sure to tickle the palate of the most discriminating eater. There is also a bar where you can have a drink or two to swap stories and unwind with your golf buddies.

Didn’t bother to take your clubs with you? That’s okay, the Connemara Golf Links has a pro shop that can offer rental clubs and other things that a golfer may need. You can get souvenir items as well as caddie cars, motorized buggies, and get caddies to accompany you while you play.

The Connemara Golf Links newly renovated locker rooms are also world class quality and there is also practice fairway and putting greens where you can warm up and get ready before setting your foot in the actual course.

There are many accommodations that are set up near the Connemara Golf Links so you wont have to drive too far just to get in a game. All of them provide excellent service and fantastic rooms.

Enjoy the Irish welcome and great culture as you go to the Connemara Golf Links on your next golfing vacation. This will be a golfing experience you will never forget.

Set in Europe’s third largest island, the Ceann Sibeal Golf Club can be found on the Western most part of Ireland and is blessed with astounding natural beauty composed of rolling dune terrains and steep and sharp cliffs that juts to the ocean. When it’s a golf vacation in Ireland that you want, the Ceann Sibeal Golf Club should always be on your list.

Encompassed with some of Ireland’s tallest mountains which include the popular Mount Brandon, the Ceann Sibeal Golf Club offers a variety of challenges to many golfers. Each and every play in its par 72 traditional links, 6,696 yard course is a totally different experience. This extremely wide and open course has a river that runs through it, a daunting task for some golfers to cross, plus adding the fast wind factor and the dune grasses that abounds in the links, poses a great test to many seasoned and pro golfers.

The Ceann Sibeal Golf Club was founded in 1924 aqnd has been designed by Eddie Hackett and Chris O’Connor Jr.

Going to the course alone offers a magnificent landscape and scenery that can take anyone’s breath away, the dingle probably offers the must serene and virginal scenery in all of Ireland.

The course itself has been painstakingly shaped from the vast un-spoilt landscape of Ireland. Challenges and hazards come naturally in the Ceann Sibeal Golf Club with a twisting burn that runs across the entire course.

Each hole promises a different vista like bays hidden in corners revealing a fishing village, magnificent topographies rolling and swaying with the lands, and a mesmerizing view of the Blasket Islands of the Atlantic Ocean. A day in the Ceann Sibeal Golf Club would offer an experience even a seasoned traveling golfer will never forget.

In case that you have been saving up to experience the greatest golf vacation in Ireland, this is a place that you can seriously consider. Ireland is a bastion of golf courses and each one provides a different attraction, but if you want serenity and total oneness with the beauty of nature taking in both the splendor of land and sea, the Ceann Sibeal Golf Club is a perfect choice to spend that dream golfing vacation of yours.

When you finally have earned your vacation and have saved up to experience the tee time of your life, head on out to Ireland where a number of golf courses have been specially designed to challenge even the most experienced golfer.

Aside from the golf course itself, you will get a chance to experience the great Irish hospitality and culture. Dotted with numerous sites and attractions, you can take your whole family with you to share a once in a lifetime experience. Many splendid and warm hotels are ready to provide you with the Irish welcome that is renowned all over the world. Plus, after a day of golf, you can go out and live out a wonderful Irish day.

If you need more information, you can just log on to the internet and check out the Ceann Sibeal Golf Club site and confirm your booking and check out the course fees. You can also go to many Irish travel tours and see how much they are asking for a wonderful Ceann Sibeal Golf Club golf vacation in Ireland.

The competition to be regarded as among the best golf courses in Ireland is fierce. Ina country where there is only about 6 million people, Ireland has about 410 golf courses that caters to golfers from all over the world. They offer both parkland and links golf courses and is a premier golf vacation spot where game styles and accommodations vary.

Situated in Killarney and is a part of the Churchtown Estate, the Beaufort Golf Club is a parkland championship course that is engulfed by the renowned McGillycuddy Reeks Mountains that provides spectacular scenery laden all throughout the course. Along the scenic views, the ruins of the Castle Core sit beside the 13th green. Entering the course, you will see two hundred year old trees lined up.

With its exceptional mild climate and the natural drainage of this par 71 course, playing in the Beaufort Golf Club will most certainly be very enjoyable. The first nine holes can be found at the west side of the avenue while its back nine provides more eye candy as they are nearer to the highest mountains in Ireland on the south side.

Measuring 6,587 yards, the Beaufort Golf Club is a great alternative for the many beautiful link courses that abound in Ireland. You could also lounge around in their cozy clubhouse that permeates an aura of mixture of tradition, history and modern developments. The clubhouse is easily located being nearby to the main house of the club. Beyond it is a formal rose garden and inside the clubhouse, you will be able to see the practice putting green. Here you will be able to find many facilities that you could go to for all your golf needs, fine dining or maybe just a couple of pints of Guinness.

Just 4 miles from Killarney, Ireland’s most vibrant town, the site for the Beaufort Golf Club is in a valley that was said to be created 10,000 years ago by the Ice Age. Getting there is easy but living the warm welcome and the great environment can be pretty hard.

You and your family will be able to enjoy a golf vacation together. It doesn’t matter if not all of you plays golf. The rich culture and history of Ireland and the town of Killarney coupled with its many fine dining restaurants and countless points of interest can cater to all the needs of the group.

The nearby Killarney golf course also can offer you an alternative choice as you can alternate from each course to the other for variation. Both are just stone’s throw away from the town of Killarney and can be easily gone to everyday.

After your round of golf, you can just go back to the town, dress up and explore the many wonders and forms of entertainment that the town offers.

Going to Ireland for a golf vacation trip can be quite costly. But with all the wondrous sites, great accommodations and the warm welcome you will get will make every penny spent truly well worth it.

You can check out the internet for contact information to the Beaufort Golf Club or you can just visit their website. You may also talk to your local travel agency or to any other online agency to see about travel golf packages to Ireland.

Ireland is a bastion of golf course, whether be it parkland or links courses, and they have more than enough for its 4 million population to accommodate many other golfers from all over the world. Blessed with beautiful land and scenic views, vacation golf spots in Ireland are a definite must-play and should provide a wondrous time whether you are just a beginner or a seasoned golfer.

To those who have already gone and played at the Ballyliffin Golf Club, they have been blessed of having a chance to play at two great golf courses adjacent to each other. Both straddles the shores of the Atlantic Ocean and provides a challenging game as the wind constantly blows erratically swaying the flight of the golf ball.

Either the old links or the Glashedy links provide a relentless pursuit to providing a fun yet unpredictable day of golfing with the best of the old and new provided to its members and visitors.

Before the Ballyliffin Golf Club enjoyed its vast popularity today, it has experienced a number of success and failures that have shaped it to be one of the more exciting golf links Ireland has to offer.

The concept of starting a golf club in Ballyliffin started out in the later part of the 1940’s after the Second World War. By then, a group of people interested in the idea banded together and leased lands and converted it into a 9-hole golf course. The club itself prepared the greens before playing, doing the menial tasks of mowing the grass and checking the area.

But the development of the club and the course itself was a slow and painful process. With such a small club that doesn’t have really any resources at all, frustrations and doubts on whether the club should be continued at all flourished. Then the impending end of the lease also was hanging over their heads and the future of their club was slowly darkening.

But the sun shone the little golf club from Ballyliffin when the landowners agreed to extend their lease. The club’s association with the Irish Christian brotherhood has also helped it recruit more players and improve their revenues. By the time the 1960’s were ushering in, the confidence of its members soared and the prospect of owning the land was getting brighter.

Then by the late 60’s problems with the land arose again as the owners weren’t keen on renewing the lease once again. This prompted the club to look for a larger area to lease and convert into a links course.

By 1970, the Ballyliffin Golf Club transferred to a much bigger area and construction soon started. Barely three years after 18 holes were ready to be played.

But problems soon arose again. Financial concerns plagued the club and the seawall was being eaten up by the sea as more gravel were being removed for the construction. A masterfully planned charity, bazaars and concerts saved the club from financial disaster and the stopping of construction by the sea saved the property.

Soon, more members joined the club and green fees were rising with its new found fame adding more finances to the club’s coffers. A new clubhouse was now opened and more facilities and amenities were being put up.

Five decades after the original group members decided to start the Ballyliffin Golf Club, a new course was now added. By 1993, the construction started on the new course beside it and was finished two years after. Many professional and golf enthusiasts that the new championship links course was stunningly beautiful and was well designed.

With the success Ballyliffin Golf Club has experienced, and the failures that has made it what it is today, you can be sure that a golfing trip to this eventful course would be well worth the long trip from across the globe.

Getting a booking in the old course of the Ballybunion Golf Club can be quite difficult especially in the peak season. A long list is filled up months before the season and most of them are seasoned golfers looking forward to the difficult yet very relaxing links. But if you don’t get the chance to have some tee time on the old course, you may find that the Ballybunion Golf Club Cashen course, its new course, can be quite as challenging and some might say its more challenging.

Designed by Robert Trent Jones SR., the Ballybunion Golf Club Cashen course features spectacular yet difficult long links dotted with enormous sand dunes, which means you have to make the ball fly when you play to the number of greens that has been elevated in these treacherous course.

While scores of golfers from all over the world flock to Southwest Ireland for the old Ballybunion Golf Club course, local golfers tend to prefer the new Cashen course. Many low handicapped golfers have also expressed their preference for the new course, but the old still remains as a must go to and play course for all golfers, for maybe at least once.

The Ballybunion Golf Club Cashen course has traditional links and like the old course, it is exceptionally unique, and is set with the greatest sand dunes found in golf courses world wide. Both are also designed along the Atlantic Ocean offering a calming back drop.

The Ballybunion Golf Club Cashen course is also a private members only club like the old course, but they do sometimes allow limited public access during weekdays. Limited guest plays are also allowed but must always be accompanied by a member.

The Ballybunion Golf Club Cashen course has set booking conditions so that other golfers can be accommodated as some of them come from different parts of the globe. Some of the conditions are:

· All payments are non-transferable and non-refundable.
· Bookings not paid by the due date will be removed from the list
· Payment in full must be given 28 days after reservations has been made.
· Payments can be done via cash, cheque or credit cards.
· A handicap limit is observed. 24 for males and 36 for females.
· The certificate of handicaps should be presented on the day of reservation.
· A group of four would only be the allowable number in each play.

Being one of the most sought after golf clubs in Ireland and the world, members, guests and visitors are expected to follow a dress code that would met the clubs high standards and should be neat, tidy and clean.

You will not be accepted in the club if you were the following:

· Sleeveless, singlets and shirts with no collars.
· Outfits with slogans.
· Shorts that are not tailored.
· Untucked shirts
· Leisure or track suits.
· Also, pant legs should not be tucked inside the top of the socks.

Carts are now also available to be used around the Ballybunion Golf Club Cashen course, it will only set you back 3.50 Euros for each cart for each round. You can also ride on buggies in the Cashen which is prohibited on the old course.

When it comes to golf courses, the Ballybunion Golf Club has more than a century of experience in the industry, whether it’s the old or new, you can be sure that you will get one of the more satisfying golf vacation trips in Ireland that you’ll ever have.

Earning a well deserved 92nd rank in the 2005 edition of Gold Digests top 100 golf courses outside of the United States of America, the Waterville Golf Club represents clearly what golf links should be. Its not only a golf course, it’s a mystical retreat where one can rediscover the passion for golf and play the game with pure enjoyment, plus having the beauty of nature surround you in each and every hole.

Rated as one of Irelands longest links courses, the Waterville Golf Club has a total of 7,311 yards of pure golf heaven. You will find many scenic views as you play the game allowing you to have peace of mind and a deep appreciation for its design and culture. Located in Ireland’s famous and amazingly beautiful Ring of Kerry, the Waterville Golf Club is surrounded by hills sprinkled with cottages and the Atlantic ocean and the Ballinskelligs Bay in its sides.

Playing golf at the Waterville Golf Club would expose you to strong gusts of winds that can provide a very challenging game. The course also is a combination native grasses, sand dune gores, sod faced bunkers, firm fairways, and fine putting surfaces that is made even more difficult by unpredictable and constantly changing weather. A link course that is already a hundred years old, the Waterville Golf Club is in the top 5 golf courses in Ireland and is also in the top 20 golf link courses all over the world.

But aside from its world class course, Waterville Golf Club also offers a lot of amenities and services that could make every golfer feel like royalty.

There you will find the elegant Waterville Golf Club clubhouse filled with everything a golfer would ever need. Showcasing a collection of impressive classic golf memorabilia and golf photographs and arts that makes up the ambience and the aura that is unmistakably a golfer’s paradise. There is also a restaurant that offers great Irish dishes and fresh seafoods that can captivate even the most discriminating and picky eater. There is also a bar that offers the best pints in all of Kerry.

Adjacent to the clubhouse is a pro-shop where you can find every golfing equipment that you may need. There is also a golf school nearby with golf pro’s that can teach you the basics and the different secrets to playing golf.

Looking for accommodations? You don’t even have to go far. You can spend your entire golfing vacation right in Waterville Golf Club. The Waterville house is an 18th century manor rated 4-stars for its excellent service and features. Situated in a forty acre property beside the Atlantic, the Waterville house has 12 suite bedrooms, a steam room and sauna, health facilities with a gym and massage room, a billiard room and even a golf practicing area. There are also private rivers and lakes for those who want to have a little down time fishing for salmon and sea trout.

Ireland has always been known for its great golf courses, many pros flock to their ocean side golf links not only because of the great games they would be able to play, but also, the warm welcome they receive and the great services and accommodations they will get.