Our golf nut goes to Holywood and County Down
Eddie Coffey sampled some of the world’s best golf courses – and very tasty grub – in Ulster
Asimple sign of fame. You drive into Holywood Golf Club just outside Belfast and it’s nothing out of the ordinary. One such outfit the same as another, really.
Like all such institutions, there are car-park spaces allotted to the captain, secretary etc. Just the space reserved for the officeholders, never the names… which change annually in most clubs anyway.
In Holywood, though, there is one space with a name on the wall, that of their favourite son, Rory McIlroy.
A very small simple sign, but the outward indication of having arrived, although still only turning 28 next week.
Then you go inside and while most clubs have a few cups and trophies won by club members over the years, here you have replicas of The Open’s famous Claret Jug and the US PGA and US Open trophies… the lasting mementoes of Major triumphs in the game so many of us love.
Golf, of course, isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Many of those we leave at home when we disappear on a Sunday morning would rather scratch their nails down a blackboard than watch these planks walking around a big field after small ball.
For the rest of us, it’s the quickest way to get us out of bed on the mornings we don’t have to go to work. Different strokes.
Of course we are always on the lookout for the best places to play this beautiful game and, at the moment, Northern Ireland is staking a claim to be one of its foremost destinations, aided considerably by the same Mr McIlroy.
The battle for the aforementioned Claret Jug, for example, will be hosted in Portrush in a couple of years… in golfing terms comparable to having the Oscars ceremony on a one-off at Belfast’s Odyssey Arena.
The Irish Open – jolted up the pecking order thanks to Rory’s support – will take place at Portstewart in early July this year and there are courses up North that are included in most discerning golfers’ lists of all-time best 20s and top 50s.
So when I was invited to play three of those top courses recently, including Rory’s home track and Portstewart, my elbow didn’t take much twisting. Added to those two was Royal County Down which is widely regarded as one of the best courses in the world and you realise that for saddos like me, three-day breaks don’t come any sweeter.
And as if that wasn’t tasty enough, the weather gods decided to be at their kindest when we visited in early March. Our first stop was Royal County Down, a track that will test every aspect of your game. With the Mountains of Mourne forming a most beautiful backdrop, if you’re not on top of your game you will be swallowed up by the subtle demons that lie around every dogleg and lurk in every one of their ‘bearded’ bunkers.
You’ll walk off though – having taken a snap at the ninth… one of the most photographed holes in world golf – knowing you’ve negotiated one of the finest courses imaginable. We based ourselves in Belfast at the excellent four-star Europa Hotel (at one time glorying in the title of the continent’s most bombed hotel).
With 272 guestrooms, a couple of bars and a lively atmosphere, it’s an ideal base from which to check out the city – or mislay your jacket after several beers, as one of our party did, but I’m sworn to the old maxim that what happens