Golfing holidays and golf breaks in Ireland.
Cork Golf Club
Little Island, Co. Cork, Ireland
Founded in 1888, and redesigned in 1927 by Mackenzie, this championship parkland course is as graceful and mature as its age would suggest. Scenically situated in Cork Harbour, the club has played host to major amateur and professional tournaments over the years.
Lough Mahon, on the estuary of the River Lee, forms a pleasant background for much of the course. Built on free-draining limestone, the course presents a crisp heath-like playing surface akin to links. The course is particularly renowned for its many long carries from the tees and its superbly manicured greens.
Cork is also outstanding for the fact that much of the parkland course requires the golfer to tackle many holes set within a huge limestone quarry. On the attractive river stretch, from behind the 3rd green, along the classically sited 4th and 5th holes and on by the ragged shoreline to the 6th tee, the mind's eye can easily picture the scene around the turn of the century, when quarried limestone was transported on barges to the mouth of the estuary to be transferred to ships heading across the Atlantic. Local lore says that many of the skyscrapers of New York and Boston can trace a limestone origin to that quarry in the middle of Cork Golf Club.
The par-three 7th hole and the drive too the 8th are played from the floor of the quarry and it's intimidating effect remains chillingly in focus throughout the 8th and onwards in the playing of the long curving par five 11th hole.
Even then, with your back to the chasm, there is little reprieve because MacKenzie's signature is most pronounced in the nature of Cork's much acclaimed finishing stretch. This takes the form of a "no prisoner" crescendo of five straight par fours, sweeping back down towards the imposing clubhouse and away again, to return via a magnificent 17th hole played from a high tee across a long carry to a narrow fairway. On then to the 18th, where the out of bounds boundary wall completes the enduring suspense.
After playing Cork Golf Club, everywhere else seems to pale in comparison. For the club golfer, Cork Golf Club comes as close to perfection as makes no difference. It poses a challenge to all golfers and boasts a variety and a certain beauty that is second to none.
No. of holes: 18
Length: 6731 yards
Par: 72
Course Type: Parkland
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Telephone:+44(0)1462 437611
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