Narin a Rout

Narin & Portnoo Golf club is located some forty-five minutes north of our base of operations on Lough Eske, and we set out after fortifying ourselves with a rather sumptuous Irish breakfast.  The club does not list an architectural credit for the links, but it's widely reputed to be one of the more scenic links to be found.

Theresa at one point asked about the odd name of the club, which of course is derived from this road

 sign.  More curious than the name is the logo, which has far too much going on for its own good.  In fact, our David Owen had a post explaining the imagery in the logohere, but even the lad in the shop agreed that it "made one's head hurt" to sort through.

David's post (and a warning that his post ends with a quite sad story, not unfortunately uncommon in these parts) had this to say about the club:

Narin & Portnoo Golf Club is situated among the dunes on a knock-you-over nub of the

Atlantic Ocean called Gweebarra Bay, on the northwest coast of County Donegal. The club’s entrance is not captivating: you reach it by driving into the sort of tawdry-looking trailer park that the Irish and British seem to plant on all their choicest oceanfront real estate. But the course is tremendous. Kevin Markham, who has played every 18-hole course in the country, has described the seventh through eleventh as “maybe the best run of holes in Ireland.” The fifteenth, which measures 530 yards and plays into the prevailing wind between a line of dunes and the sea, is the hole that the ninth and tenth at Pebble Beach are trying to be. And the encampment of caravans—whose occupants, it should be said, sustain both the club and its bar—are invisible after a few holes.

David is quite right about the ubiquity of caravan (trailers to Americans) on the finest of the Scottish and Irish links, including Balybunion and Royal Dornoch to name-drop just a couple.  And while I did perform my usual survey of the swag available for sale, I must note that the rather oversized logo is a bit much on a sweater or golf shirt... 

When we arrived ours was only the second vehicle in the carpark, and for a while we were the only games on the course.  The outbound holes features a lateral hazard on the right, which I imagine must be a bit of a bother in the prevailing left-to-right wind off the bay, though it was for us still as could be, quite rare to be sure.  Theresa sported me the usual two-up lead early, but per her M.O stormed back to make things competitive.

As a digression, I've learned to scan the scorecard to see if the ladies par is different  than the gents, a common factor here as the clubs do not have sufficient resources to build separate tees.  I've never quite gotten a clear description of how to handle that for scorecard purposes and used to give T the extra shots only to have her close me oout on No. 12.  No more with that, buy strokes may need to ne moved around a bit.  As we teed off on No. 4, I noted that a 390 metre Par-4 should not the S.I. 15, and sure enough we had an issue, as it was a Par=5 for the lasses.  Strangely enough, No. 13 was a Par-5 for the men but a Par-4 for the distaff set.  

We had quite the battle royale on the outward nine, as both of us were golfing our ball.  A quick digression to brag on me' lady's short game, which has improved dramatically.  A couple of examples so you'll see what I'm up against:

Here Madam manages to hit the soft, high one off a typically tight links lie (that hill was much higher than it appears).

This from more of a lie with which we're familiar, but quite well down.

We each made great chips to halve No. 8, a Par-4 playing downhill towards the water.  On No. 9 I thought I had her when she left her first putt some fifteen feet short, but Attila the Hon calmly drilled that one into the center of the cup.  Oh well, I thought, she'd only getting four on the backside so I've got her right where I want her.  

The beautiful but quite fiendish seventh green.

The 8th green with the ninth tee to the right.  The tee shot on No. 9 for the men is played directly over the 8th green.

But your humble correspondent chose a three-hole stretch on the inbound nine, of course three holes without candy for m'lady, to go on walkabout, including a sudden loss of all motor skills.  It was dreadfully ugly, the low point being an overly-aggressive play from a spongy Maram-grass lie on a dune that squirted sideways and struck my own trolley, loss of hole and all.

But the scenery and shot values were quite spectacular.  As one of the gentlemen (more on them in a bit) we allowed through noted as I took some photos, "It's really anywhere you look, isn't it?"  And indeed it was....

The bride hacks away off the ninth.

The profoundly devilish tenth green complex.

Perhaps my favorite hole visually, trolley-gate notwithstanding, was the uphill par-5 fourteenth.

Theresa's favorite moment was this view down to the beach:

When Theresa finished water-boarding my own self, we found the aforementioned gentlemen on their second round of Guinness on the porch and we joined them for a drink.  We talked about the course, where else we are playing and, of course, the forthcoming Ryder Cup.  But while professing our love for links golf, one of the gents asked how w enjoyed the 16th, what he called just a wee pitch on a windless day such as this.  And indeed it's a fine example of a certain type of hole:

Set aside your reaction to the caravans for a moment, and concentrate on the golf challenge.  It's all of 110 metres (121 yards)from the tips, but anything that missed will leave quite a challenging second.  And as one of the gents noted, while a mere pitch that day, in any real wind you might well be trying to drop a 5-iron onto that small tabletop.

For those cheering on Theresa, I've now handed her a 7 1/2 to 4 /12 point lead, a not insurmountable yet still quite daunting hole to dig myself out of.  Recognizing our fatigue and need for some down time, I've quite reluctantly decided to pass on Cruit Island.  It's reputed to be quite the charmer, but my back nine play yesterday made the necessity quite clear.

We'll now be on our way to our Ballyliffen homecoming after a hearty breakfast.   Strangely enough, Theresa has yet to see her first cat on this trip, but that will assuredly be remedied as we'll be staying on the same block on which we rented our house two years ago.  At that time I did quite a bit of catblogging and we look forward to renewing acquaintances with all of our old friends of the 4-pawed persuasion.