Portmarnock Golf Club Course Review

Portmarnock Golf Club Fact File:

• Location: Portmarnock is 10 miles north of Dublin city centre and occupies a peninsula beside the Irish Sea
• Year Established: The club was founded in 1894 after John Jameson agreed to an original 25-year lease
• Par: 72
• Length (yards): 7,466
• Green Fees (weekdays): €405
• Signature Hole: The par-3 15th is very hard to beat, running alongside the Irish Sea, if not to find the putting surface from 200 yards.
• Website: portmarnockgolfclub.ie

The story of how this links came to become the best golf course in Dublin is a beauty. On Christmas Eve 1893 an insurance broker and his friend rowed the short distance from Sutton to Portmarnock Peninsula to seek out land that might be suitable for some decent links land.

It was a private nine-hole course for the Jameson family, of whisky distillery fame, and the holes were laid out by that insurance broker, WC Pickeman, and the 1874 Open champion Mungo Park who would soon become the club's first professional.

The course would open in 1894, nine holes were added two years later and, in 1971, a new clubhouse and nine new holes (the Yellow course) were added.

It has barely changed other than for a few green movements and reconfigurations though the superb par-3 15th was inserted into the routing in 1927.

Portmarnock held the first Irish Open and has staged this tournament more times (19) than any other club.

Otherwise it has held plenty of prestigious amateur events, including the Women's Amateur in 2024 and the men's Amateur in 2019.

Its most famous time came though at the 1991 Walker Cup when Phil Mickelson and David Duval were part of a victorious American side.

But the best may well be yet to come with plenty of talk about Portmarnock becoming the first course from outside the United Kingdom to host The Open.

At this year's Championship the new R&A Chief Executive Mark Darbon explained: "Yes, we are thinking about Portmarnock and we've been really encouraged by the support that we've had in principle from the Irish government to work with us to understand whether we could stage an Open Championship there. We're knee deep in feasibility work to help us answer that question fully. We expect to have a clearer picture by the back end of this year."

Tiger Woods once said Portmarnock is "one of the most enjoyable links courses I have had the opportunity to play."

Ireland's very own Shane Lowry recently captioned a social media post of him playing at Portmarnock with: "Nowhere better."

Do I really need say any more? 

Portmarnock Golf Club Review

To give you some sort of idea of quite how brilliant Portmarnock is, it's easily ranked in the top five courses in Ireland alongside the likes of Ballybunion, Lahinch, The European and the new kid on the block, St Patrick's Links. For many it might well be the number one.

To give yourself a good idea of how Portmarnock works it's best to have a look at an aerial photograph. There is water on three sides and there are no huge dunes so it is at the mercy of the elements. But it's fair and in front of you and the greens are sensational, both in the size and shape as well as the condition.

Bernard Darwin described them as one of the course's biggest strengths: “Perhaps the outstanding beauty of Portmarnock lies in its putting greens. They are good and true, which is a merit given to many greens, and they are very fast without being untrue, which is given only to a few, and is a rare and shining virtue."

You'll be hugely excited to play here for the first time though the 1st, which runs alongside the estuary and is plenty good enough, might feel a little underwhelming, almost a bit like Royal Troon. Designer Donald Steel described it as 'neither difficult nor straightforward, an ideal way to start' which seems the perfect way to view it.

The front nine has plenty of right-to-left holes, many of them gentle doglegs, which set up for some thrilling and lengthy tee shots with the right wind and there is only one par 3 and 5 on the opening nine holes. Generally speaking you will get some help on the front nine but you will then turn straight into the wind at the 9th.

The back nine sits mainly in a separate loop with holes 12-18 on the other side of the fantastic clubhouse. Things really move up to an altogether different level here; at 13 you tee off by the estuary to a fantastic par 5 which is covered by bunkers and a rare conifer and more sand make the 14th a very visual test.

Then we come to 15 which is likely Portmarnock's signature hole – a lengthy par 3 which runs alongside the Irish Sea and, if you do manage to locate the putting surface and avoid the run-offs (and the beach), then you will have played a proper shot. Ben Crenshaw described as the 'shortest par 5' in the game.

The 17th is a lengthy and straight two-shotter which adds to the finish before a stadium-like finish at the last where a raised green sits in front of the gorse and buckthorn as well as the stately clubhouse.

Portmarnock is one of those world-class courses where everything just makes sense and everything flows into the next test. It's wonderfully natural and, if the game's oldest Major does end up here, then it would provide a spectacular and hugely popular setting.

An Open in Dublin, can you imagine how good that would be?

Final Verdict

The third loop of nine holes (Yellow) was added in 1971 and designed by Fred Hawtree for the very modest sum of £3,500. Having visited here we played this after lunch and scored fewer points than we did in the morning around the Championship Course. That might say something about how we spent the lunch but it's another brilliant run of holes which will never be spoken about enough and, if it was dropped in somewhere away from its more grown-up 18 holes, it would be very highly praised.

There are three par 5s here so there is a bit more variety (if you've had enough of world-class, bucket-list par 4s) and the reachable par-4 4th, alongside the sea, might be the pick of the crop. Do play the Yellow nine if you're lucky enough to visit this corner of Dublin as it will provide either perfect warm-up for what's to come or a similarly stimulating and challenging test to what's gone before.

And make time for a leisurely lunch to drink in all that the clubhouse has to offer. Ireland does clubhouses very well and there are some spectacular views to take in as well as all the esteemed history. 

Tiger Woods is a good judge of a great day out on the links and he's been a regular visitor to Portmarnock for well over 20 years now.

I can very much see why. 

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

For more information, please visit the club's website here