Best Golf Courses Ireland

The Best Golf Courses Ireland 2021

What are the best golf courses Ireland to play? Over the years, publications such as Golf Digest, Golf Monthly, Golf World and several different publications created and published their versions of what are the top 100 golf courses in various countries.

Most of the worldwide golf publications quote that the Irish Links are the best Irish Courses to play compared to the Irish parkland courses. With this in mind, the top-ranked courses in Ireland are all golf links-courses. Such as the world-class Royal County Down Golf Club, Royal Portrush Golf Club, Portmarnock Golf Club, Lahinch Golf Club, Ballybunion Old Course and Waterville Golf Links.

All of the six golf-courses are the most challenging courses to play well and post a good score. However, there are also factors that affect scoring such as the type of weather, the golfer’s ability to play links golf, time of day, the playing conditions, and so on.

These factors all have a significant influence on how the golfer defines his or her golf experiences. Additionally, the anecdotal evidence that I have collected over the years, it that, not all golfers love the same courses.

What do our Golfers say about the Best Golf Courses Ireland?

We gathered information from the various golfers that we worked with since 2002. Our approach is to identify the quality and the experience of the golf courses played. We ask and listen to golfers as they describe how they rank the courses played.

Thankfully golfers were only too delighted to talk about their golfing experiences and their feedback is very important to us. Also, it is worth noting that Royal County Down is currently the clear favourite of all the Irish courses played. Whereas Old Head is the top course for golf course views and wow factor. Where the back nine at Arnold Palmer’s Tralee Golf Club is cited for a beautiful back nine of golf holes. 

Carne Golf Links is ranked for great value golf links courses and Co Sligo just pips Enniscrone, Co. Donegal, Ballyliffin Glashedy Links and Rosapenna Golf Resort for the top courses in the Northwest of Ireland. Also, it is a toss-up between Lahinch and Ballybunion to which course is favoured in the Southwest.  

Notably, the European Club stands out as the hardest course to play in the East and Portmarnock Golf Club is the highest-ranked. That said, County Louth, The Island, Portmarnock Links and Royal Dublin have ranked highly also. If I may be biased, there are a lot of world-class golf links Irish courses. 

The Best Golf Courses Ireland 2021