Portmarnock Golf Club

Host of Irish Open 19 times

Ranked by Golf Digest as the best golf course in Ireland, Portmarnock is a place that five-time Open Champion Tom Watson described as offering “no tricks or nasty surprises — only an honest, albeit searching test of shot-making skills.” A true links on a spit of land in the Irish Sea north of Dublin, its routing hasn’t been altered in over a hundred years — revolutionary for constantly changing wind direction with every shot.  With water on three sides and two loops of nine holes, players are invariably facing a different direction on every hole, at the constant mercy of the wind. Measuring just under 7,500 yards from the back tees, the greens are lightning fast and true.
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Portmarnock has produced champions including Seve Ballesteros, Bernhard Langer, Ian Woosnam, Ben Crenshaw and José María Olazábal.  Arnold Palmer and Sam Snead claimed the 1960 Canada Cup on these fairways, and in 1991 Phil Mickelson and David Duval led the United States to a Walker Cup triumph here.  From Harry Vardon and Sam Snead to Rory McIlroy and Padraig Harrington, no course in Ireland has been graced by so many of the game’s greatest names.
The closing five holes are the stuff of legend — the par-three 15th plays along the seashore, where three fearsome bunkers guard the green and the beach awaits any wayward shot.  As Bernard Darwin wrote: “I know of no greater finish in the world than that of the last five holes at Portmarnock.”