DRUID'S GLEN GOLF CLUB, NEWTOWNMOUNTKENNEDY, CO. WICKLOW.

Host of the Irish Open (1996 - 1999)

DESIGNER: Craddock & Ruddy

YARDAGE: 7,058 Yards

PAR: 72

SSS: 73

Every effort has been made, and can be seen to have been made, to make the Druid's Glen Golf Course in County Wicklow into one of the most sophisticated homes of the game. The result is a truly magnificent golf course which is near the village of Kilcoole just 20 miles south of central Dublin in the lovely County Wicklow. The Druid's Glen site is a turbulent, well wooded, well watered property of about 400 acres just to the seaward side of the N11 motorway south of the Glen of the Downs. It encompasses the old Woodstock Estate and an adjoining farm.

The course presents a pretty picture from the first tee, a gorgeously sweeping par-4 of 445 yards across a gentle swale to a green lurking like a dangerous woman in the sunlit trees, to the 18th green which is an awesome target across three lakes which cascade over weirs one into the other at the end of a strenuous 485-yard journey uphill! Like great designers, composers and playwrights before them, they have not been slow to adapt some of the most trusted and proven principles of some of the most storied holes in golf. The par - 3 second, for instance, measures 190-yards and is broadly based on the second shot to the infamous Road Hole at St. Andrews.

There it is, a long iron shot, a large green curving uphill from the right and wrapping itself around behind an evil front bunker; and, at the back, a road backed by a stone wall! The par - 3 eighth hole is 166 - yards across the water, just a few yards removed from the 16th at Augusta National, and the green has been built along the same evil principles and lines as those to be seen at the famous Georgia hole... all from memory and with a large twist of artistic individuality and not a little cruelty.

The par-3 seventeenth features an island green to bring to Irish golfers their first major chance to play this type of hole which has become such an exciting feature of modern golf. The course has been built to the highest specifications by Sandale Construction and no effort has been spared making Druid’s Glen a true gem in the garden of Ireland, Co. Wicklow.