In our opinion the toughest test of golf in all of Ireland. Magnificent layout with frightening
greens. If the wind is blowing make sure you and your caddy have plenty of balls!!! One
of the great courses in the world with beautiful views and a tough test of golf. - Andy Higgins, May 2001
Royal County Down has two superb eighteen-hole courses. The links of Newcastle are exhilarating even
without a club in your hand. For a start, the links themselves are not effete pimples,
but rise on a heroic scale, with faint echoes of Royal Birkdale here and there, and they
are mainly covered with gorse bushes which daub the landscape with splashes of ochre
when the flowers are in bloom. As a backdrop, the Mountains of Mourne loom heavily against
the sky, subtly changing colour under the play of the sunshine and shade just as the
Irish sea switches its mood. Spice the picture with a hint of peat smoke in the wind and
you have a setting which all the billions of property developers could never reproduce.
The strip of duneland was 90 % along the road to being a golf course long before the game
was invented. All it ever needed from the hand of man was a minimum of adjustment, the
levelling and teeing grounds, moulding greens and the digging of bunkers. And all it needs
now is restraint from the hand of man. The Royal County Down has five tee shots which
are blind, to a greater or lesser degree, and for a number of the approach shots the
greens are partially obscured. The Championship Course: is laid out beneath the imperious
gaze of the Mountains of Mourne; the course enjoys a magificent state-like setting as
it stretches out along the shores of Dundrum Bay. As well as being one of the world's most
beautiful courses, it is also one of the most challenging with great swathes of heather
and gorse lining fairways that tumble beneath vast sand hills, and wild tussocky faced bunkers
defending small subtly contoured greens. It is spectacular to look at and even more thrilling
to play. The Second Course complements the Championship links by offering a less formidable,
yet extremely characterful game played against the same, incomparable backcloth. Recently
substantially revised under the direction of Donald Steel, the course begins quite benignly
before charging headlong into the dunes. Several charming - and one or two teasing - holes
have been carved out amid the gorse, heather and bracken. Occasionally there is splendid
isolation; at other times glorious panoramic views of the sea, the bay and the mountains.
That apart, the course offers a wide variety of exhilarating challenges, including one
short hole with the highest white-knuckle factor you may have ever encountered. Royal
County Down's Championship Course ranks no. 5 of "The 100 greatest courses in the
British Isles", Golf World International 11/96, and is consistently rated among the
world's top ten courses.
Designer: Tom Morris
Holes: 18
7037 yards
Par:71
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