Battle of the Irish Golf Course Rankings

Ballybunion Cashen - one of GDI's biggest
climbers, up 13 to 66th

This year, Irish golfers got three sets of golf course rankings to either agree with, be inspired by, moan about or vent their fury over. Comments on Boards.ie and Twitter included:

"The list is a joke, when I saw Strandhill in the high 40s that said enough."

"I have no problem seeing Tralee and Lahinch number 2 and 3, you couldn't say they aren't good enough."

"Ardglass Down 14 (to 89)! The biggest drop on the list - crazy! Rest my case"*

That's the nature of lists like these. Here are two tables comparing the links and parkland top 15 rankings from:
- Golf Digest Ireland's (GDI) Top 100
- Golfing Weekly's Top 50s and
- Backspin's Top 30s

A few important points:

1.     GDI and Golfing Weekly are sister publications. Interestingly, their parkland rankings came out within a few days of each other…

2.     … but the significant differences can be explained by the ‘public vote’ element. The two Golfing Weekly lists (click for links) are ranked by 100% public votes (the Parkland ranking received over 4,000 votes, while the Links/Seaside ranking received over 1,500), which give a very different impression of what constitutes ‘best’ among the average golfer population. 
 Sure, I disagree with the list, but I like the idea and golfers can't say their opinions haven't been heard. Courses you wouldn't normally expect to see (Glen of the Downs (49) and Beech Park (50), most notably) in a top 50 are there, too, which adds a fresh dimension. Subscription to the mag is free, all you need to do is enter your email at www.golfingweekly.ie

Portstewart's 5th (ranked 14th, 14th and 15th)

3.     The Old Head of Kinsale remains an anomaly – people can’t determine how to categorise it. Hence, it appears under ‘Parkland’ in GDI’s ranking, but under Links/Seaside in Golfing Weekly’s list. It comes 18th in Backspin’s Links list. (Note for interested parties: Old Head is NOT a links course despite the club's insistence that it is; it’s a seaside course only.)

*4.  Ardglass dropped 14 places in the GDI ranking because of significant damage done to the course, which led to a re-routing and the omission of two of the course's best holes. It will be back to its original course in early 2014.

Parkland

	Golf Digest Ireland	Golfing Weekly	Backspin
1	Adare	K Club (Palmer)	Mount Juliet
2	Mount Juliet	Mount Juliet	Adare
3	Old Head	Adare	K Club (Palmer)
4	Killeen Castle	Druid’s Glen	Killarney (Killeen)
5	K Club (Palmer)	Lough Erne	Druid’s Glen
6	Lough Erne	Killeen Castle	Headfort (New)
7	Carlow	The Heritage	Lough Erne
8	Carton (Monty)	Killarney (Killeen)	Killeen Castle
9	Fota Island	Carton House (O’Meara)	The Heritage
10	Cork	Slieve Russell	= Carlow
11	Headfort (New)	Cork	= Malone
12	Druid’s Glen	Dun Laoghaire	Fota Island
13	Killarney (Killeen)	Carlow	Carton (Monty)
14	Slieve Russell	Headfort (New)	Concra Wood
15	Concra Wood	K Club (Smurfit)	Cork

Esker Hills. The other big climber in the GDI list, up 10 to 72nd)

Links

	Golf Digest Ireland	Golfing Weekly	Backspin
1	Portmarnock	Ballybunion (Old)	Portmarnock
2	Royal County Down	Lahinch	Royal Portrush
3	Royal Portrush	Tralee	Royal County Down
4	Waterville	The European	The European
5	Lahinch	Ballyliffin (Glashedy)	Lahinch
6	Ballybunion (Old)	Co Louth	Waterville
7	Tralee	Portmarnock	Co. Louth
8	Co. Louth	Royal Portrush	Ballybunion (Old)
9	The European	Doonbeg	Co. Sligo
10	Ballyliffin (Glashedy)	Donegal	The Island
11	Co. Sligo	Co. Sligo	Ballyliffin (Glashedy)
12	Enniscrone	Royal County Down	Tralee
13	The Island	Old Head of Kinsale	Royal Dublin
14	Carne	Portstewart	Portstewart
15	Portstewart	Waterville	Doonbeg

Irish golf course rankings will be fought over every time a new list is produced. The best you can hope to do is draw inspiration from such lists and identify those courses you haven't played and then go play them. It's not as if we're short on choices.