World top-75 ranked

With a rich history closely aligned to the progression of golf in Ireland, Portmarnock has hosted numerous Irish Open Championships, the Walker Cup, Irish Amateur Championships and the British Amateur Championship, and the rumour that it’s being lined up as the next course to be introduced to the Open rotation doesn’t look like dying down (we think this one has legs)

From Sam Snead to Seve Ballesteros, some of golf’s best-known names have tested their skills against this majestic narrow tongue of shallow dunes-land, just north of Dublin.

Considered by many as one of the fairest links courses in the world it delivers an incredible challenge and true test of golf.

Perhaps five-time Open Championship winner Tom Watson summed up the links best during his visits saying, “There are no tricks or nasty surprises, only an honest, albeit searching test of shot making skills.”

For good reason this course ranks # 78 in the top 100 ‘Architects Choice’.

The Island Golf Club enjoys a unique setting bordered by sea on 3 sides. A classic links course set in a rugged terrain & nestled between the highest sand dunes along the east coast. The Island was indeed once on an island. It’s now attached to the mainland but it’s still an isolated peninsula-like spur of links land, sandwiched between the Irish Sea, the beach of Donabate and the Broadmeadow estuary.

Few people know about The Island Golf Club, despite the fact that the course is over 100 years old and has featured in numerous ranking tables over the years. Being on the outskirts of Dublin and close to the airport it’s also a very functional choice to include

The use of a country’s patron saint to make a statement has some illustrious precedents. St Andrews, St George’s and St Patrick’s (Rosapenna). In Wales the ‘Royal’ seal has also been earned for St David’s, Harlech

With the mountains of Snowdonia providing a backdrop and the impressive ruin (and genuinely iconic) Harlech Castle overlooking the links this is a frame worthy of any masterpiece.

Unlike many links courses, Harlech is not an ‘out and back’ design but rather an intricate routing the twists and turns so continually exposing the golfer to changing wind directions. In this regard it might have borrowed from Muirfield which was built a year earlier

Harlech has always been noted for its large greens, and punishing rough, and as well as a spectacular closing stretch that begins to make the dunes for the course. This involves some challenging drives and carries, with many of the holes considered to play at ‘par and a half’

World top-100 ranked and Open Championship venue

Royal Birkdale first hosted in 1954 but has made up for lost time since. Set amongst towering dunes that look as if they belong in Ireland, Birkdale is widely held to be England’s ‘best’ links course

The distinctive art deco clubhouse overlooking the 18th is arguably the courses signature, but that would be to do disservice to the 6th and 13th holes

It remains the only English venue where Tom Watson triumphed and  hosted in 2017 when Jordan Spieth having got himself into an almighty mess at the 13th had the presence of mind to exploit a line of sight ruling to limit the damage to just a bogey before coming home with a ‘wet sail’ to beat Matt Kuchar

Along with Lytham and Muirfield, it is one of just three venues to have hosted the Open, Ryder and Walker Cups, the Ryder Cup memorably in 1969 in what became known as ‘the concession’.

“I don’t think you would have missed it, but I wasn’t going to give you the chance, either.” – Jack Nicklaus

World top-100 ranked and Open Championship venue

Royal Lytham is a strange course aesthetically, being surrounded by houses. It’s the one links that hosts the open where you don’t get views of the sea. It also has the unusual quirk of opening with a par 3

The course first hosted in 1926 and has done the honours a total of 11 times now.

A few years ago Faraway Fairways got a database of every score posted on every hole for every round at their most recent Open Championship. We then conducted an adjustment for prevailing conditions, based on a allowance system borrowed from horse racing. So what was the most difficult course on the Open rotation? To our surprise, it was actually Lytham. A closer inspection of the scoring suggests that two of its brutal part 5’s allied with the most bunkers on the rotation was the reason.

The course is probably most associated with two European names however. Seve Ballesteros is a two time winner here, memorably in 1979 when he drove into the overflow car park (his shot, not his vehicle) and had a car moved to allow him to play without penalty

Tony Jacklin won here in 1969 to record an incredibly rare hoe victory

Open Championship venue

Hoylake first hosted in 1897, but was dropped in 1967 having hosted a total of 10 Opens. It was re-introduced in 2006, when Tiger Woods memorably won an emotional event. In 2014 Rory McIlroy followed him for his solitary title, and in 2023 it was turn of Brian Harman to lift the claret jug as he fired a 65 in the second round that opened up a decisive gap that he defended without event.

Hoylake is normally regarded as the least striking of the Open venues, its first six holes being pancake flat. It’s a course you rarely ‘get’ first time as its challenge is in adjusting your stand for the subtle undulations that can otherwise find us chopping down if we aren’t concentrating fully.

For the 2023 championship a controversial par 3 was introduced which certainly caught the eye, but probably looked a little bit too much like the manufactured transplant that it was.

World top-100 ranked

Rosapenna, and the recently renovated St Patricks course suddenly leapt up the rankings from seemingly nowhere to rank behind Ballybunion and Lahinch, vying with Portmarnock (and overtaking it on some lists) for third place. Why? Well the answer is Tom Doak and completely new design

The St Patrick’s Links is routed in an adjoining dune system just south of the existing two courses at Rosapenna. Doak has fashioned 18 unrecognisable and unforgettable holes over the same tract of land. The result? A sprawling links that is destined to become a modern great and one which is drawing comparison with Barnbougle Dunes.

It sits on the most magnificent piece of links land – huge scale and scenery, with enough variety in dimension to present a real diversity of golf holes. The routing takes golfers on a journey through huge dunes, to high above Sheephaven Bay, along the coast, then back over some more gentle dunes… and that’s just the front nine! With plenty of width and an eclectic mix of naturalised bunkers, the course is unlike anything in the UK & Ireland.

World top-25 ranked & Open Championship venue

Royal Portrush is constructed on an area of natural dune land framed by limestone cliffs. The Open was held here in 1951, and won by Max Faulkner. In 2019 it returned, Shane Lowry playing the elements best of all to prove a popular local(ish) winner, whilst Scottie Scheffler obliged in 2025 (note how quickly the R&A came back!)

The Dunluce Links is home to one of the most stunning par fours in golf, the 411 yard 5th hole. A dogleg hole played from an elevated tee towards the ocean, it rewards the daring shot across a wide expanse of rough. An overly long approach shot will end up on the sand of the White Rocks beach which lies just beyond the rear of the green however. Carnage!

Calamity Corner, the 210 yard par 3 16th hole is the other feature hole. Between the tee and the green is a yawning chasm, which must be cleared to stand any chance of making your three. This is a score wrecker coming at a decisive moment in the round.

World top-5 ranked

Periodically Royal County Down can displace the likes of Pine Creek or Cyprus Point as the world’s highest rated golf course (its that good).

It is framed in one of the most stunningly natural links settings in golf. The Murlough Nature Reserve provides the stage, the magnificent Mourne mountains the backdrop. The narrowest ribbons of fairways thread their way through as impressive a set of sand dunes as could be imagined. The fairways are surrounded by purple heather and golden gorse, so beautiful to look at, but so punishing for any who may stray from the prescribed path. The ‘bearded’ bunkers are world famous, featuring overhanging lips of marram, red fescue and heather. The greens are fast and many are domed, rejecting any shot lacking conviction.

The ninth hole is one of the most photographed holes in world golf, a 486 yard par 4, it is played from one side of a huge mound down to a fairway some 60 ft below and 260 yards from the tee. From the bottom of the slope the second shot is played over two bunkers to a raised green.

More affectionately known as ‘Baltray’, County Louth is a links course of the highest pedigree. With a spectacular layout it regularly ranks in top 10  courses in Ireland

The championship links are known for providing one of the purest and fairest tests of links golf in the world. For professional golfer and former Ryder Cup Captain Paul McGinley, this is his favourite links course in Ireland, remarking: “It’s just a great test. All the holes run in different directions, so you have a different exam paper on each hole”.

In 2004 and 2009 County Louth Golf Club hosted the European Tour’s Irish Open. On the latter occasion, the club was etched into Irish golfing history when it famously became the venue where 2019 Open Champion Shane Lowry won the Irish Open as an Amateur.