Two Kerry Courses in World Top 100

GOLF Digest magazine have just released their Top 100 golf courses in the world outside the USA and Ireland has eight included with two of them from Kerry.

Royal County Down is at number one followed by Royal Portrush at number seven and then there’s Ballybunion (old) at 16, Lahinch at 34, Waterville at 55, Portmarnock at 58, Old Head at 83 and the European Club at 92.

Although I’m not a huge fan of Portmarnock, its surprising to see it ranked so low as its usually rated much higher than that, but then, these lists can be taken with a grain of salt, because most of the people ranking them have never even played them and of course depending on the magazine, the amount of advertising you buy from them also has a huge bearing on your rating.

Just to prove my point, I wrote a similar article in January of last year, and the very same magazine (Golf Digest) listed Ireland’s Top 100 courses on that occasion.

Their top ten were in order : Royal Co Down, Royal Portrush, Portmarnock, Lahinch, Waterville, Tralee, Ballybunion (old), the European Club, Rosses Point (Co Sligo) & Baltray (Co Louth).

So, how can Portmarnock be third in Ireland but 58th in the world, Lahinch fourth in Ireland but 34th in the world, Waterville fifth in Ireland but 55th in the world, Tralee sixth in Ireland but not in the world’s top 100, Ballybunion seventh in Ireland and 16th in the world and the European club eight in Ireland but 92nd in the world ? This beggars belief and like I said, should be taken with a grain of salt.

The one thing to note from these rankings is that the top ten of Ireland’s Top 100 are all links courses and the eight Irish courses in the world’s top 100 are all links courses too but the newly-renovated course at Adare Manor opens for play in March and it will be interesting to see if it can break the links monopoly when Ireland’s Top 100 are released next January.