Irresistible Ireland

Editor's note: This story first appeared in Global Golf Post on Sept. 16, 2024
There is a moment, when night has turned to morning and the plane that started on the far side of the Atlantic the previous evening is descending into Dublin, when a glance out the window reaffirms why you’ve come to Ireland.
It’s the green. Parcels of land, divided by stone walls, each a slightly different shade of green from the other.
It’s the sky. Even when it’s cloudy and painted with blue-gray scraps of clouds swept together by the wind, it seems almost impossibly wide.
It’s the people, ruggedly proud of their ancient home that has managed to maintain its charm while adapting to a changing world.
And it’s the golf, collectively as good as anywhere in the world. Famous and inconspicuous. Links and parkland. Heroic and humbling.

A journey to Ireland with golf clubs, whether along its southwestern edge where Ballybunion and Lahinch lie, along the Wild Atlantic Way at Donegal and Sligo or north from Dublin into what is called the Ancient East and on into...