The Royal Dublin Golf Club

Host of Irish Open

Founded in 1885 and granted Royal status in 1891, Royal Dublin is Ireland’s third oldest golf club  and one of its most storied. Located on Bull Island in Dublin Bay, the course was redesigned by the legendary architect Harry Colt in the 1920s after it had been decimated by military use during World War I.  Martin Hawtree later modernised the design, lengthening the course and adding 18 new raised, contoured greens — resulting in a 7,269-yard, par-72 links that is a sterling test of ball-striking and course management.  Routed in a classic out-and-back format through fescue fields, with the wind swirling off Dublin Bay, it is a course where every hole demands a different answer.
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Royal Dublin has hosted the Irish Open six times and more Irish Amateur Opens than any other course in Ireland. The Irish Open was held here three consecutive years between 1983 and 1985, with Seve Ballesteros and Bernhard Langer among the winners.  The club was home to Irish legend Christy O’Connor for over five decades, and his spirit remains woven into the fabric of the place.
The front nine sweeps out with the prevailing wind before the back nine turns for home into the teeth of it, with the final three holes delivering a championship finish.  The often-drivable par-4 16th is guarded by seven pot bunkers, the 17th demands precision into a green with a narrow entrance, and the signature 18th — a sweeping dogleg with the out-of-bounds “Garden” threatening both drives and approach shots — provides one of the most memorable closing holes in Irish golf.