Ah, Ireland. Land of Guinness, lilting accents, St. Paddy’s revelry, and, for our purposes, undeniably great golf. Here, you’ll tee off on authentic links older than some nations, share fairways with sheep, and wrap up rounds where the post-golf pub stop feels just as important as tomorrow’s tee time. In short, it’s golf heaven.
With more than 400 courses scattered across the Emerald Isle, the options are endless. But we’ve handpicked the ones that make the journey truly worth it.
Best Golf Courses in Ireland
1. Ballybunion Golf Club, Old Course
County Kerry
To quote American sportswriter Herbert Warren Wind, Ballybunion’s Old Course is “nothing less than the finest seaside links I have ever seen.” It’s a bold claim, but one that doesn’t take long to justify. The drive in along Sandhill Road (though not quite Nebraska) offers the first hint of what’s coming: authentic links golf carved into some of the wildest dunes in the country.
The wind is a constant companion, sometimes helpful, more often hostile. On its better days, it’ll give you a nudge toward a decent score. On most days, it makes it clear the round is less about numbers and more about admiring the views.
What truly sets the Old Course apart, though, is its routing. Instead of clinging to the coastline in one long, predictable stretch, the holes peel away and return to the sea again and again. The result is a course that lingers in the mind, so vivid that many players swear they can remember every shot they hit, whether they’d like to or not.
2. Lahinch Golf Club, Old Course
County Clare
If you’re familiar with the Cliffs of Moher, you already understand the scale of drama along this stretch of the Clare coast. Just 10 kilometers inland sits Lahinch’s Old Course, one of Ireland’s great originals.
It’s often described as Ireland’s answer to St. Andrews, mostly because it shares the same linksland bones and deep sense of history. But Lahinch isn’t interested in imitation. This is a course with its own personality—quirky in all the best ways and unapologetically old-school.
Shaped over time by some of the game’s most influential minds (Old Tom Morris, Dr. Alister MacKenzie, and, more recently, Dr. Martin Hawtree), the course makes full use of the land, winding through dune valleys, humps, and hollows.
3. Portmarnock Golf Club
County Dublin
Just north of Dublin and minutes from the airport, Portmarnock makes it easy to ship your clubs ahead and get straight to the good stuff. Set on a long, sandy peninsula pushing into the Irish Sea, the course occupies shallow duneland where rolling fairways, revetted bunkers, and firm turf deliver a textbook links test.
Laid out in three nine-hole loops that take the prevailing winds from every angle, Portmarnock manages to feel both fair and merciless. Well-struck shots are rewarded; careless ones are not. That balance, along with its uncompromising setting, has made it a perennial host of Irish Opens, Walker Cups, and championship golf of the highest order.
4. Old Head Golf Links
County Cork
Old Head Golf Links is a rare place where the golf course is relatively new, but the history of the land dates back centuries. Set on a narrow headland that stretches more than two miles into the Atlantic, it has long been a precarious outpost, more accustomed to shipwrecks than double bogeys. The waters below have claimed countless vessels, most famously the Lusitania, sunk just offshore in 1915 by a German U-boat; at the time, it was the largest ship ever built.
The Old Head lighthouse still stands watch to this day, as do the ruins of a 12th-century castle that are affixed to the club’s front gate.
As for the golf, it delivers a sense of exposure that few courses can match, with the ever-present wind at your back and waves crashing 300 feet below your spikes—most notably at the 4th Hole, aptly named “Razor’s Edge.”
5. Waterville Golf Links
County Kerry
The Atlantic, the estuary, the river, the lough—you can basically pick your hazard at Waterville Golf Links. Designed by Eddie Hackett and Tom Fazio, the course is a tale of two nines. The front side rolls over relatively gentle terrain, while the back climbs and dips along towering dunes—dramatic, yes, but with a surprising twist: there are almost no blind shots. What you see is exactly what you get.
You should also keep your eyes peeled for a few local celebrities: the Irish Hare, the course’s adorable mascot, often scuttles across fairways, and fifty species of birds put on a daily aerial show overhead.
6. Trump International Golf Links Ireland
County Clare
Trump International Golf Links, Ireland (formerly Doonbeg Golf Club) takes oceanfront golf to an entirely new level, with 16 of its 18 holes affording views of the Atlantic Ocean. It was originally designed by Greg Norman in the early 2000s, but underwent significant renovations under the watchful eye of Dr. Martin Hawtree in 2014. While more contemporary than Ireland’s older links, it still offers a bona fide seaside test: firm lies, shifting winds, and, in keeping with Norman’s “least disturbance” philosophy, a routing that faithfully follows the natural contours of the land.
7. Rosapenna Golf Resort, St. Patrick’s Links
County Donegal
The Rosapenna Golf Resort acquired St. Patrick’s Links in late 2012, a former 36-hole facility that occupied some of Ireland’s most stunning linksland, but never quite lived up to its potential. That changed in 2019, when Tom Doak set foot on the dunes.
He tore up most of the old holes, reimagined others, and created entirely new shots across the site’s 300 acres. The result, which opened in 2021, is a course that winds along Sheephaven Bay, meanders through sprawling dunes, and challenges players with naturalized bunkers and bold, unexpected holes. Already ranked among the world’s top 50 courses, St. Patrick’s Links now sits proudly alongside Rosapenna’s other two classics: the Sandy Hills Links and the historic Old Tom Morris Links.
8. Tralee Golf Club
County Kerry
Designed by Arnold Palmer, Tralee Golf Club is perfectly captured in a couple of quotes from The King himself:
“I may have designed the first nine, but surely God designed the back nine.”
“I have never come across a piece of land so ideally suited for the building of a golf course.”
Once you play it, you may well agree that divine intervention was involved. Set high above the Atlantic in County Kerry, Tralee’s front nine winds along elevated linksland with panoramic views of cliffs, beaches, and Barrow Bay—beautiful, but merely a prelude. Because the back nine is where the land truly asserts itself: holes thread through massive dunes, carve across deep ravines, and funnel toward greens perched on plateaus.
9. Adare Manor
County Limerick
It may be the golf that brings you to Adare Manor, but the neo‑Gothic Manor House often steals the show. And there’s even more to it than meets the eye. It’s a rare “calendar house,” whose design features 365 windows, 52 chimneys, 7 pillars, and 4 towers, representing the days, weeks, and seasons of a year.
But the golf is no afterthought. At the heart of the estate lies the Adare Manor Golf Course, a par‑72 layout stretching over 7,500 yards from the championship tees. Redesigned by legendary architect Tom Fazio, the course takes full advantage of the estate’s rolling parkland, mature trees, and the gentle curves of the River Maigue.
The course will soon take center stage as it’s set to host the Ryder Cup in September 2027.
