Waterville - a trip back to heaven

[Photo: the club's official mascot]

5.55am and my alarm goes off. I’m on holiday so it’s a bit of a brutal start to the day… but I’m heading for Waterville Golf Links, thanks to the very generous invitation of Noel, the General Manager. I asked to play early, to keep out of the way of fee-paying golfers, but I hadn’t really thought how early I’d have to rise and how long it would take me to get to the club from Parknasilla Hotel. 45 minutes is the answer.

Denis, the hotel’s night porter, had put together a breakfast for me – nothing fancy, but enough to get the day started. A 6 o’clock breakfast usually calls for quiet and a slow crawl to normality, but Denis was up for a natter. I cleared the cobwebs and learned some interesting facts: if you don’t already know, Parknasilla has a 9 hole course that is well respected. Denis told me that when the hotel was bought a few years ago (from the Great Southern), there were plans (and drawings) for an 18 hole course that would have torn through the woods and slipped between the new hotel lodges.

[Photo: Waterville's Clubhouse at 7am]

Truth is, I was delighted to hear that it never happened. After all, it’s not like we’re short of golf courses, and Parknasilla is a perfect hotel as it is, with its many coastal and woodland walks within the grounds.

[Photo: Waterville's 1st hole, 'Last Easy', from green to tee]

Waterville Golf Links was deserted when I arrived – not exactly a surprise – and I was teeing off by 7am. The first hole is called the ‘Last Easy’ which is apt, if a tad misleading. It’s probably the most straightforward hole, but it’s not exactly easy. Mine was not a good start. It was too early for my bones and muscles to function as one. Still, after a first hole where the ball barely got airborne (not always a bad thing on a links course) I played the dogleg second hole in a more traditional fashion: a drive pushed right that shortened the hole but put me in the rough. I saw no distance markers so judged the shot by eye and hit a 9 iron that bounced short of the green and rolled up towards the hole. I walked about 20 yards and passed the 150 yard marker, which meant I’d knocked a 9 iron some 170 yards.

No, this is not about bragging, it’s about appreciating how differently a links golf plays, how a ball runs and how firing at pins is downright stupid (unless you’re hitting straight into the wind). I’m playing in the Atlantic Coast Challenge in a few weeks (over Carne, Enniscrone and Co. Sligo), so it was a good chance to practise sensible links golf. My second shot turned out to be a fluke and the dew on the green showed that I missed an eagle by an inch. When you’re used to parkland golf, it’s a battle to convince yourself to play low running shots. Sadly, it was a battle I lost on almost every hole.

[Photo: the Inny Estuary wraps itself around the 3rd green]

I’m no loner on the golf course, but there are times when playing by yourself on a completely empty course is sheer bliss (I was out before the greenkeepers). Hares lolloped around me, the air was cool and crisp and the scenery was dazzling in the early morning sunlight. The Inny Estuary appears at the start (holes 2 and 3) and the end (16 and 17), before streaking out into Ballinskelligs Bay alongside 18. The best views are from the 16th tee. Or maybe the 17th, or 3rd – it’s hard to say, since they’re usually of the 360 degree variety with mountains rising almost all around you. If you want to see for yourself, visit the club’s website or click here for my 40+ photos.

Playing Waterville is always a privilege but on this particular morning it was heaven. It is the most attractive links in the country – of that there is no doubt – and it plays so sweetly from tee to fairway. There are only three holes here where a flag is not in view, which makes the gentle doglegs, rhythmic dunes and distant flags utterly mesmerising. Time and again you look across at the views and your eye is caught by fluttering white flags in the distance.

[Photo: Waterville's approach to 15, with some steep slopes around the green - a common feature]

The bigger challenge here is approach shots to deviously protected greens. Because so much of them is on display you think they’re more manageable than they are. It’s a brilliant piece of deception and may even be at its most cruel on the 18th green.

I have played here only twice (but would play here every day given the choice) but on both occasions I have been circled by helicopters as they arrive to deposit golfers. The course is far enough down some of the craziest roads that helicopter is the most viable choice of transport, and it certainly indicates that the American golfer is still coming to play Ireland’s great links courses. Long may it continue. The course is owned by Americans, who brought over Tom Fazio to redesign aspects of the course. His work is a triumph and evidently American golfers think so too. Personally, I see Waterville's success as Eddie Hackett's vision and Tom Fazio's precision. What a team they would have made.

[Photo: views from the 16th tee, out over the Inny Estuary to Ballinskelligs Bay]

I walked in off 18, past the statue of Payne Stewart, and wished I was walking back to the first tee. It sure as hell beat the chaotic, violent drive back to the hotel. A statue of Charlie Chaplain stands in the centre of Waterville village and he gave me a grin as I went past: he knew exactly what the road held in store.

Parknasilla Hotel, Skellig Bay & Waterville

[Photo: shadows and sun play across the fairway on the approach to the 1st hole, with the sea and mountains as an idyllic back drop]

Memories are wonderful things… when you can remember them. Things get a bit rusty with age, as you know… or as you’ll soon find out. In 1998, I spent my honeymoon in Parknasilla in Co. Kerry. It’s the kind of place where it always feels like family. 13 years after our first visit and there are familiar faces to greet you and look after you. Sometimes that’s a wonderful reassurance, a bit like an eight iron from 150 yards. No fuss, no hesitation, you’re relaxed and content. We tried to get the same room as our honeymoon, but it was already taken.

I was down for a few days and planning visits to Skellig Bay and the mighty Waterville. Two very different courses that both capture the imagination but in very different ways. Skellig Bay came first and a late evening visit took me down the Ring of Kerry into a ball of sun that made seeing the potholes in the road nigh on impossible. This is one of the most bizarre routes on the planet: stretches of smooth blacktop interrupted with furious regularity by potholed chaos, narrow roadway and cliff-clinging barriers that look far too precarious for your health.

[Photo: stunning views over the 2nd green from the 3rd tee box]

Especially when buses come hurtling around corners towards you with a startling degree of indifference. It is just crazy and I feel sorry for tourists who are driving on a different side of the road for the first time – we encountered an American couple who had burst a tyre and buckled the wheel because they had driven too close to the edge. As we chatted to them and made calls to the hire car company, the wife threw in the classic “I told you you were driving too close to the edge.” A lesser man might have taken the jack to her, but the husband seemed remarkably unfazed.

[Photo: Skellig Bay's 11th - previously a brilliant closing 18th]

Because Waterville is almost as far west as you can go on this island the sun sets that much later, so at 9pm the sun was still high and Skellig Bay had a scattering of players across the headland. It looked glorious in all its hues and shadows as I walked up to the first tee. And this was where my reassurance took a knock. Skellig Bay has re-ordered its holes because there is a new clubhouse. The re-ordering is not the problem, nor the new location for the clubhouse which is far away from the old first tee. No, the problem is that the excellent old 18th is now merely the 11th. It was a great hole (par five, index 3), from high point to high point, and made for a brilliant finish. But the course is just as good as before, with beautiful flowing fairways neatly tucked between traditional and (mostly) authentic old stone walls, cairn and magnificent views of mountains that could only be Irish.

The holes above the ocean are the holes that are probably most memorable, but the best holes are further inland – holes 14, 15 and 16 – where a river runs and trees add to the atmosphere of startlingly rural Irish golf.

[Photo: The par three 14th - a magnificent hole]

It costs €500 to join here and while it is a long way for many golfers, it is worth a visit, especially if you’re playing Waterville five minutes away. The lady in the clubhouse was keen for me to revise my review of the course (which she hadn't even seen), on the basis that 84 out of 100 (I think) was not up to her high expectations. I think my review is a good one and Skellig Bay is something that you won’t be able to experience anywhere else. Of that you can be sure.