NEWCASTLE, NORTHERN IRELAND | Like so many other things, the debate over the best golf course in the world is more subjective than objective.
Like styles of pizza or greatest movies, there can be multiple right answers.
Which brings us to Royal County Down Golf Club, which may be the best golf course in the world.
It has landed atop some of the most respected course-rankings lists through the years, trading places with Pine Valley and Augusta National among others in what is an eternal discussion.
This week, Royal County Down will host the DP World Tour’s Amgen Irish Open, putting the great links on display for the world to see in all of its twisting, tumbling glory.
It has been nine years since the Irish Open was played at RCD, which ended a 76-year absence, and it doesn’t take a course architecture aficionado to appreciate why legendary golf writer Bernard Darwin wrote that it presents “the kind of golf that people play in their most ecstatic dreams.”
Big and brawny, framed by heaving dunes and deep bunkers outlined by shin-deep marram grass, Royal County Down is bordered by the Irish Sea on one side and the magnetic Mourne Mountains on another. It is, at once, both eye candy and an exacting test, regardless of how briskly the perpetual wind blows.
“Thirty-three years here and people always did come with very high expectations, and I’ve never met anybody that it didn’t meet them. That’s a hard one. Very proud of that,” said Kevan Whitson, who will retire as the club’s long-time head professional at the end of the year.
“This is not like a links course you’ve played before. You can use the word unique and be loose with it. But to have a mountain range sitting atop a links golf course, you just don’t see that, and it’s what makes this very different.”
The original nine holes, which opened in 1889, was designed by schoolteacher George Baillie. Within a year, Old Tom Morris had been summoned from Scotland. He designed the second nine and, when several of the game’s best players visited, they suggested changes that were implemented.
In 1925, Harry Colt made adjustments, including the creation of the par-4 ninth, which is one of the most photographed holes in the world, playing down from a bluff to a fairway that runs directly toward the clubhouse and the mountains.
Stand atop the hill on the ninth before making the long climb down and the majesty of Royal County Down surrounds you.
“Like any championship golf course, it’s designed to be difficult. If you hit the ball into trouble, you generally find it is trouble, and it’s trouble you can’t recover from with any real gain.” – Kevan Whitson
There have been other tweaks through the years, some overseen by Donald Steel, and 20 years ago a new 16th hole was built. The result is a magnificent layout that includes a handful of blind shots set within a rugged stretch of land, tinted yellow by blooming gorse in the spring and purple by flowering heather in the summer.
Royal County Down measured more than 7,000 yards in the 1950s when persimmon woods, steel shafts and balata golf balls ruled the day.
“Like any championship golf course, it’s designed to be difficult. If you hit the ball into trouble, you generally find it is trouble, and it’s trouble you can’t recover from with any real gain,” Whitson said.
“If you think you can gain 100 yards that way, just go 40 [the other] way. If you go that [longer] way, you’ll just end up deeper and deeper in trouble.”
Royal County Down is open to outside play, but its popularity is such that making tee time inquiries months in advance is advisable as the 2025 tee sheet is already filling up.
It wasn’t always that way. For decades, Royal County Down had a small but devoted group of disciples who spread the word.
“It was pilgrims who came here in the early ’90s to play the golf course,” Whitson said. “There was still the backdrop to The Troubles. They were kind of brave golfers. They were in Dublin, and they were saying we’re going to go up, and they would shoot up and then shoot away back again after a round of golf. They were the ones who went out and spread the word to the world.”
“The three Harmon brothers, I first came across them here in ’94. They found it, came here to play and they went home, and it was Butch Harmon’s favorite place in the world. He’s now a member. He’s done a huge amount to promote the place.”
Royal County Down has the bonus of having the spectacular Slieve Donard Hotel located a short par-4 from the clubhouse. The Slieve Donard is one of the most renowned golf hotels in the world, with 180 rooms that blend Old World charm with all of the modern amenities.
Part of the Marine & Lawn Hotels & Resorts collection which also features Rusacks in St. Andrews, Scotland, and the Marine Hotel in North Berwick, Scotland, the Slieve Donard is the perfect spot for starting and ending a visit to Royal County Down. It offers just a short walk from the lobby through an arched gateway into the golf course.
“There was that whole element of discovery, of getting here and finding these courses. People find that exciting. They find something they can go home and talk about.” – Kevan Whitson
With Royal Portrush, site of the 2025 Open Championship just 90 miles to the north, golf in Northern Ireland, which features several outstanding layouts including Ardglass and Portstewart – plus nearby Ballyliffin just across the border in the Republic of Ireland – is thriving.
“As people came and discovered it, back in those [early 1990s] days, there were 40,000 visitors playing the likes of Ballybunion, 40,000 playing the likes of Killarney,” said Whitson, noting two of the republic’s favorites. “We had about 800 in those days. People were coming to Ireland, but they weren’t coming to the north. There was that whole element of discovery, of getting here and finding these courses. People find that exciting. They find something they can go home and talk about.”
With the Irish Open’s return, there is the inevitable question as to whether Royal County Down could or would host a future Open Championship.
“Would RCD wish to have the Open? No. Too much,” Whitson said.
“If [the R&A] came and said, You can do an Open here, and you don’t have to change anything; we’ll just come and do it, then maybe, but the odds are that’s not going to happen.”
Royal County Down is content to let Royal Portrush host the world every few years.
“They are completely different golf courses,” Whitson said. “I’m a huge fan of Portrush. It’s a wonderful golf course. They are very different, and that’s wonderful for the variety. Portrush would be much more of a traditional theater. You see it all in front of you. They have their challenges in terms of what they present as a golf course.
“Ours is more about being more rugged and yet more beautiful, not as fair, more chance here, more of coming over a little [dune], and what am I going to find here? Where’s my ball going to be? Nothing is predictable out there.”
That makes Royal County Down like nowhere else.