Planning an Ireland golf trip: links, logistics and the Ryder Cup effect

Golf is the reason a large share of my guests cross the Atlantic, and it’s the trip where planning matters most, because the courses that make it are the ones that fill first. Here’s how I’d do it.

Build the week around the southwest

Ireland’s great links are scattered around the coast, but the densest run of them is in the southwest, and it happens to sit beside the best scenery in the country. Fly into Shannon. Lahinch and Doonbeg are within an hour. Take the Tarbert ferry across the Shannon estuary and you’re at Ballybunion, which is, on its day, as good a golf course as exists anywhere. Then south into Kerry for Tralee, Dooks, Waterville, and on to Old Head in Cork if the wind allows. Finish at Adare Manor, an hour from Shannon for the flight home.

That’s six or seven rounds in a week, three bases, and no day lost to a transfer. It’s the itinerary I’d give my own brother.

The Ryder Cup effect

The 2027 Ryder Cup comes to Adare Manor, and it has already changed the southwest. Adare’s own course — the Tom Fazio redesign — is the hardest tee time in the country to get and worth every effort. Around it, hotels and the other links are booking earlier and pricing higher than they did three years ago. If you want to play the Ryder Cup course before or after the event, tell me early; the tour companies I work with have relationships there, but relationships need notice.

When to come

May, June and September. The days are long — you can get 36 holes in and still eat dinner in daylight in June — the fairways are firm, and the wind is a factor rather than a wall. July and August are fine but busy. Links golf in October is for the committed.

How far ahead

Nine to twelve months for a summer trip that wants the famous names. The best morning times at Ballybunion and Lahinch go first; Old Head is weather-dependent and worth building a spare day around. Several of the big links ask for a handicap certificate — bring it.

The non-golfers

The single most common mistake in a golf trip is forgetting the people who don’t play. The answer isn’t to leave them at the hotel. While the golfers are on Ballybunion, the others are on the Ring of Kerry with a driver, or through the Gap of Dunloe by pony and trap, or in Kenmare’s shops, or at the spa. Everyone meets for dinner. Built that way, it’s one of the best trips a couple can take together even if only one of them owns clubs. The family-run companies I match golf trips with do exactly this, every week of the season.

Who carries the clubs

A private driver-guide with a vehicle sized for four sets of clubs and the luggage that goes with them. He knows the pro shops, the tee-time desks and the pub afterwards; nobody drives after the nineteenth hole; and the non-golfers have him for their days. For a four-ball, it’s very often cheaper per head than two rental cars with the insurance a US card won’t cover.

A word on the west and the north

If you have two weeks, Connemara’s Ballyconneely and the great links of the northwest — Enniscrone, Rosses Point, Carne, Ballyliffin — are a second trip in themselves. And Royal County Down and Portrush in the north are as good as anything on earth. But not in a week with Kerry. Pick a coast.

The links golf page has the courses I build trips around. Tell me your dates and your four-ball on the planner and I’ll tell you honestly what’s gettable.