Waterville Golf Links

The verdict

Waterville Golf Links opened in 1973, the work of the great Irish architect Eddie Hackett and the American businessman John Mulcahy, who bought an old nine hole course and the surrounding duneland and set out to build a championship links on a heroic scale. The 1948 Masters champion Claude Harmon offered early counsel, and in 2006 Tom Fazio completed a sympathetic revision that strengthened several holes without losing the natural character. The result is a par 72 of about 7,350 yards that ranks consistently among the finest links courses in Ireland and the world.

The setting is half the story. The course sits on a remote spit of land at the head of Ballinskelligs Bay, ringed by the mountains of the Iveragh peninsula, with the Atlantic never far from view and the wind a constant presence. The front nine eases you in along the flatter ground near the river, then the back nine climbs into the big dunes, where the most memorable holes wait. For golfers chasing the classic Kerry triangle of Waterville, Ballybunion and Tralee, this is the wildest and arguably the most beautiful of the three.

The holes worth the trip

Waterville saves its drama for the back nine. The par 5 eleventh, Tranquility, snakes between two huge dune ridges in a private valley of fairway, one of the most admired holes in Irish golf and a true risk and reward three shotter. It is followed by the twelfth, the Mass Hole, a par 3 played to a green set in a hollow where, tradition holds, secret Masses were said during the penal times, a carry over broken ground that demands a committed strike.

The signature comes at the seventeenth, Mulcahy's Peak, a par 3 of about 194 yards to a green far below an elevated tee perched on the highest dune, with the ocean behind and the mountains beyond. The tee was a favorite spot of John Mulcahy, and the urn holding his ashes is buried there. Few one shot holes anywhere combine setting and difficulty so completely. From the long eighteenth back toward the clubhouse, the round finishes in full view of the bay.

The course has long been a warm up venue for the world's best before The Open, with Tiger Woods, Mark O'Meara and Payne Stewart among those who made it a regular base. Stewart's affection for Waterville is marked by the bronze statue near the clubhouse, cast in his familiar fist pumping victory pose, a quiet reminder of how much this far flung links means to those who play it.

Where to stay nearby

Waterville House, the club's own period guest house beside the links, is the classic base for golfers, and the village of Waterville adds hotels and inns looking out over the bay. Many touring groups stay in Killarney, an hour and a half away, which has the widest choice of hotels and restaurants and sits in easy reach of the other Kerry links.

Waterville pairs naturally with Ballybunion, Tralee, Dooks and the Old Head of Kinsale for a southwest Ireland links tour, the most scenic stretch of golf in the country.

Looking for a base? See our recommended hotels and resorts near Waterville Golf Links.