What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Ireland and Northern Ireland? The green waves of Emerald Isle? An ice-cold pint of Guinness? Rory McIlroy?
One thing that should not go overlooked is the beauty of both Irish and Northern Irish golf.
This ranking comes directly from the hundreds of Golfweek’s Best Raters for 2021 who continually evaluate courses and rate them based on our 10 criteria. They also file a single, overall rating on each course on a points basis of 1-10. Those overall ratings on each course are averaged to produce a final rating for each course. Only a handful of courses in the world achieve a rating above 9, and any course rated 7 or above presents a can’t-miss opportunity.
For more of Golfweek’s Best course lists, check out the most recent selection of course rankings:
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This is the proper way to get ready for the Genesis Scottish Open and the 150th British Open.
Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas and Rickie Fowler are living the dream this weekend in Ireland.
Ahead of competing Monday and Tuesday in the J.P. McManus Pro-Am at Adare Manor in Limerick, Ireland, they did what any golf-loving guys would do: they enjoyed a buddies trip to some of Ireland’s fabled links gems.
On Saturday, they played at Lahinch Golf Club on the northwest coast of County Clare. Lahinch, which has the fingerprints of Old Tom Morris and Alister MacKenzie on it, ranks No. 12 in Golfweek’s Best Classic Courses in Great Britain and Ireland. The boys appeared to catch it on a beautiful sunny day and as Spieth teed off, a goat grazed behind him.
On Sunday, they knocked off a gem from the Modern list, playing at Tralee, an Arnold Palmer design (often called his finest) that opened in 1984 in County Kerry.
Agent Jay Danzi, who represents Spieth, rounded out the foursome and posted a terrific selfie that showed the locals who caught wind that the pros were playing and came from far and wide to see them do their thing.
Jay Danzi’s selfie of the boys and the welcoming committee of Tralee is only a hint of the Irish warmth and hospitality. And it goes both ways. Ireland hits you in the heart and soul. pic.twitter.com/s5hSISaJOS
Props to the American pros who are living their best lives and have showed us all that the proper way to get ready for two weeks of links golf at the Genesis Scottish Open and the 150th British Open is to play your way through the links of Ireland. #Jealous
https://www.instagram.com/p/CfjTy0UIiJl/
Good to see that Thomas, who withdrew before the Travelers Championship began with a back injury, is back on the course and breaking in his new wedges with an homage to the movie “Top Gun.”
From Royal County Down to Royal Melbourne, the top International Modern Courses built outside the U.S. before 1960.
Welcome to the initial Golfweek’s Best Classic International Courses list with the highest-rated courses outside the United States that were built before 1960. (Pictured atop this story: The Old Course at St. Andrews, with photo by Steve Flynn/USA TODAY Sports)
This is the first year for this International Classic list, and it is comprised of thousands of individual ratings of courses around the world. We also recently published the Modern Courses version, shining a spotlight on the best international courses built in or after 1960.
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The 800-plus members of our ratings panel continually evaluate courses and rate them based on 10 criteria. They also file a single, overall rating on each course. Those overall ratings on each course are averaged to produce a final rating for each course, which is then ranked against other courses to produce the final lists.
Each course is listed with its average rating next to the name, the location, the year it opened and the designers. After the designers are several designations that note what type of facility it is.
Key
r: resort course
d: daily fee
p: private course
t: tour course
m: municipal
re: real estate
* Many international private courses allow limited outside play. Contact the courses indicated for more information on their guest policies.
As the Arnold Palmer Cup teams begin to take shape, the race is heating up for the final spots in the July matches at Lahinch Golf Club.
As the Arnold Palmer Cup teams begin to take shape, the race is heating up for the remaining spots in the July matches, to be played at Lahinch Golf Club in Ireland. The annual team event consists of college golf’s best U.S. players competing against those from around the world.
Three men and three women were already named to each side as committee selections. For the United States, that included Ricky Castillo (Florida), Emilia Migliaccio (Wake Forest), Kaitlin Milligan (Oklahoma), John Pak (Florida State), Kaitlyn Papp (Texas) and Davis Thompson (Georgia).
The Internationals selected Ludvig Aberg (Texas Tech/Sweden), Ingrid Lindblad (LSU/Sweden), Olivia Mehaffey (Arizona State/Ireland), Caolan Rafferty (Maynooth/Ireland), Pauline Roussin-Bouchard (South Carolina/France) and Matthias Schmid (Louisville/Germany).
Each team is made up of 12 men and 12 women
What happens next? The six Arnold Palmer Cup Ranking selections will be made on March 25, along with two additional committee selections for the United States and one additional committee selection for the International side.
Using Golfstat’s NCAA Player Ranking as a base, the Arnold Palmer Cup Ranking awards bonus points for wins and high finishes and a penalty for poor finishes. The ranking also contains a strength of schedule component.
The next Arnold Palmer Cup Ranking will be announced March 19.
Check out who’s in the running to represent the United States and International teams at the 2020 Arnold Palmer Cup.
College golf is back, and with the new spring season comes a new set of rankings.
On Thursday the first spring Arnold Palmer Cup rankings were released for the 2020 event set to be held July 3-5 at Lahinch Golf Club. At the end of the spring, the top six United States and International male and female golfers will comprise half of the 24-player field selected to compete.
Six committee selections – three men and three women – for both the United States and International teams will be announced March 4 during the PGA Tour’s Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill.
The Arnold Palmer Cup rankings use Golfstat’s NCAA Player Ranking as a base, with strength of schedule factored in. Bonus points are awarded for wins and high finishes. Poor finishes incur a penalty. The next Arnold Palmer Cup Ranking will be announced March 5.
The list numbers several clubs that are difficult to get to from the northern coast of Tasmania to an Old Course in western Ireland.
The flipping of the calendar is when Tour professionals seem least like the rest of us. Their goal-setting for the coming year is invariably focused on lofty objectives, like winning, making teams, retaining privileges, improving rankings. The closest I get to performance-based ambitions is a desire to reduce both balls lost and F-bombs dropped, a fruitless effort of several seasons now.
The dawn of 2020 offered a fresh reminder of how few of those who play for a living also play for pleasure, or for education. Zac Blair stood alone among his peers simply by mirroring what so many of us mortals do at this time of the season: compiling a wish list of courses yet unplayed. Blair’s brief included several courses featured in my own version, but the only thing any of our lists really share in common is their essential subjectivity. The lineup aspired to by a casual enthusiast may differ greatly from that of an architecture aficionado, but neither is inherently superior.
As a callow youth I spent a decade and a half sullying the world’s finest golf courses, each round completed helping move others higher up the target list. In recent years I’ve played less — apathy and inaccuracy are a debilitating combination — but the list still exists. Most of my roughly 15 rounds in 2019 came at courses I’d played before. I erased just one entry on the wish list, Garden City Golf Club, the Devereux Emmet-Walter Travis masterpiece just 25 miles east of Manhattan.
On January 1, I tweeted my top five wish list for U.S. golf courses (the final spot on any such docket should always feature a tie, hence my top five totals 11 courses):
1. Fishers Island
2. Chicago Golf Club
3. The Country Club
4. Somerset Hills
5. Eastward Ho, Myopia Hunt, The Creek Club, Mountain Lake, Crystal Downs, Maidstone, Yeamans Hall
The Country Club hosted the 2013 U.S. Amateur. (AP Photo/Gretchen Ertl)
A few Tweeters wondered how such a list could not include places like Pine Valley or Cypress Point, but such correspondents would also likely ask Pope Francis why he didn’t list the Vatican among places he’d most like to visit. More surprising was the number of strangers who kindly reached out with invitations to join them at these clubs, a delightful change from the usual social media offers inviting me to go forth and multiply.
An offer to play Seth Raynor’s Yeamans Hall near Charleston, South Carolina, came from Brian Schneider. He works with the eminent designer Tom Doak and has produced fine work, like a renovation at Hollywood G.C. in New Jersey. I first met Schneider over fish and chips in the tiny village of Bridport on the northern coast of Tasmania, Australia, in 2003. He was working on Barnbougle Dunes, the celebrated creation of Doak and Mike Clayton. We have seen each other just once in the ensuing years, but such is the circle of golf.
A desire to see the finished product is why Barnbougle Dunes is among the 11 courses that make my top five international targets.
1. Royal Melbourne
2. Royal St. George’s
3. Kingston Heath
4. Swinley Forest
5. Barnbougle Dunes, Lahinch, Morfontaine, Cape Wickham, Cruden Bay, Machrihanish, Royal Cinque Ports.
Rory McIlroy hits out of the bunker on the 18th hole during the second day of the British Open Golf Championship at Royal St George’s golf course Sandwich, England, on July 15, 2011. (AP Photo/Jon Super)
This list numbers several clubs that are difficult to get to and at least one that is difficult to get into, though I have yet to issue that s’il vous plaît request. Each earns a spot for distinct reasons.
I walked the beguilingly beautiful Royal Melbourne with Doak during that ’03 trip but we didn’t have time to play it — akin to ushering a ravenous man from a banquet having served only a feast for his eyes. It has been top of my wish list ever since.
Jack Nicklaus once famously remarked that Open Championship venues get worse the farther south one goes. Royal St. George’s sits on England’s southern coast, but my interest is less noble than comparative architectural merit. It will host golf’s oldest major for the 15th time in July and is the only course on the rota I’ve never played.
Swinley Forest is a club renowned for its eccentricities and a course celebrated for its brilliance, though barely 6,000 yards in length. Lahinch is the only top-tier Irish course I’ve not played. I’ve stood on the breathtaking first tee at Machrihanish, but that was at night. Reasons enough for all to feature on my list.
It’s both a blessing and a curse for golfers that our wish lists are never completed, that like an Irish enemies inventory it is perpetually replenished from a seemingly bottomless reservoir. For every Fishers Island or Royal Melbourne that is eliminated, an Ohoopee Match Club or Hirono stands ready to take its place. And that is an indispensable element of these dreams in draft form — that pleasure exists not only in striking through the names consummated but in the addition of those to be courted next.
Most all of us have more great courses remaining to be played than years in which to do it. All we can hope is that the wish list we draft a year from now measures progress against today’s.
A view from the 9th tee over the par 5, 12th hole (left to bridge) with the 10th and 13th greens in the foreground on the The Old Course at Lahinch Golf Club, on September 28, 2005 in Lahinch, Co. Clare, Ireland (Photo by David Cannon/Getty Images)
