If you’ve ever wondered what golf at the ends of the earth is like, you’ll find your answer in County Donegal, Ireland.
The scenic northwest corner of the Republic of Ireland — bordered by Northern Ireland and closer to Belfast than to Dublin — is the most rugged stretch of what Tourism Ireland calls “The Wild Atlantic Way.” It’s remote, the roads are narrow, the dunes are huge and the people are eager to share their golf courses with visitors willing to make the journey.
A sample itinerary of golf in County Donegal: After arriving in either Dublin or Belfast and following a two- or three-hour drive, your course list might include North West Golf Club, Donegal Golf Club, Cruit Island Golf Club and St. Patrick’s Links. It’s a play list with plenty of variety and scenic views.
A logical base of operations would be Letterkenny, a centrally located town of 22,000, that’s large enough to offer a variety of AirBnBs, VRBOs, pubs and dining options.
County Donegal might lack the star power of Ireland’s west and southwest coasts with revered venues like Ballybunion, Lahinch, Waterville and Tralee, but County Donegal’s courses are solid, even spectacular, and generally more affordable than courses to the south.
Exhibit A is Cruit Island Golf Club ($82), perhaps the wildest nine holes you’ll ever play. Climbing and descending dunes created by the ever-present wind atop a craggy peninsula that juts into the Atlantic Ocean, Cruit Island (pronounced “Critch” by the locals) plays as an 18-hole course using two sets of tees.
Its solid rock palisades stand some 60 feet above the ocean as its tight fairways crisscross its remarkably small footprint. Views from just about anywhere on the course are breathtaking. The course’s most photographed hole, the 150-yard par 3 sixth, is a dramatic forced carry over a rocky inlet to a false-fronted green. Depending on the wind direction, your caddie will tell you, the hole will play as long as 225 yards and as short as 80.
An ideal warm-up for the wilder terrain of County Donegal’s western reaches is North West Golf Club ($176), on the eastern shore of the Lough Swilly, a 26-mile-long sea inlet. The course, south of the small town of Buncrana, stays fairly flat as it runs through low dunes and thus is an easy walk. Deftly placed mounds of deep fescue dot the fairways and serve the same ball-gobbling purpose as pot bunkers. Pull your tee shot on the 139-yard par 3 eighth hole and you may find your ball in a blackberry bush. Or not. A few freshly picked berries will salve the pain of a lost ball.
A more physically challenging test is Donegal Golf Club ($300), laid out among the dunes of the Murvagh Peninsula, a spit of land in Donegal Bay. This sprawling Eddie Hackett-designed course (later reworked by Pat Ruddy) with an inner and outer nine is surrounded by water one three sides, yet for much of its 7,400-yard length it feels like an inland course. British Open winner Darren Clarke, a native of neighboring Northern Ireland, calls Donegal “one of my favorite courses in the world.”
A Donegal course that has moved Irish golf’s center of gravity northward is Tom Doak’s 2021 creation, St. Patrick’s Links. It’s one of three courses that are part of the Rosapenna Golf Resort. While Rosapenna’s Sandy Hills Links by Ruddy, built in 2003, and the Old Tom Morris Links, staked out in 1891 by Old Tom himself, are superb links courses, the resort’s third and newest, St. Patrick’s Links, is one of golf’s newest stars.
St. Patrick’s Links ($412 for non-resort guests) opened in 2021. It immediately found itself ranked No. 55 on Golf magazine’s list of the top 100 courses in the world and it has since climbed to No. 48. Its deceptively generous fairways are routed through and over towering dunes that make it a difficult, but rewarding walk. Most holes offer the option of chasing a low shot onto the green. Its putting surfaces are large, huge, even, and their severe contours require precise iron play to have any hope of birdie.
County Donegal is the fourth largest region in the Republic of Ireland and has one of its smallest populations. The result is a region welcoming of visitors, and its courses, by virtue of their remoteness, offer an intimacy not found at the bigger-name courses to the south.
Other courses in County Donegal are Narin & Portnoo Links, Portsalon, Ballyliffin, Greencastle, Dunfanaghy, Ballybofey and Stranorlar, Cloughaneely, Bundoran, Letterkenny and Buncrana golf clubs.