Dublin Parklands

Are you looking at dublin or between dublin and the border?

Between Border: I would look at Concra Woods, Slieve Russell, Killeen Castle, Headfort New, Lough Erne?

Near or in Dublin: Palmerstown House, Lutrelstown

Little bit outside: Druids glen, Powerscourt, Tufarris, Rathsallagh

This is a great starting list.

Headfort a nice potential overnight job, two courses on site. Headfort Old and New with a hotel close by.

Concra a great idea close to the border.

Luttellstown is lovely and relatively M1 adjacent.

Getting a bit further into Dublin, and maybe a little less accessible in terms of getting on the timesheet, Castle, Grange and Hermitage are superb, classic Parkland courses.

Stretch into Kildare/Carlow area and Carlow GC and Naas are both lovely courses.

Palmerstown House, mentioned above already, and you noted Carton and the K Klub.

If you're happy heading slightly further south, Wicklow has some great parkland options, Greystones, Dun Laoghaire, Macreddin, Powerscourt, Woodenbridge. And you could knock a links off the list while down and play the European

Check out St. Margarets just north of Dublin Airport. Titleist Black Monday Series is an open running every Monday. 35 euros to enter, great course and some good prizes too.

I second that, Lucan is a smashing course...

I believe that Castleknock also have opens every Tuesday. I will be in the area in a few weeks time and looking for a game. What is the recommendation between Lucan and Castleknock?

And significantly cheaper

Castleknock is run by Carr and has all the issues that go with that

Old School Cool:

1. Grange

2. Castle

In that order, both in Rathfarnham

i could put my finger on plenty of things 🤣 i have recently given up my membership of castleknock. in fairness though it is a decent course and the club is growing, but between having someone own it, someone run it and a club in between them all, the management of the place as a whole was always poor.

as a course for a game of golf though it would be difficult to choose between it and lucan (which i've played 10+ times but not in a few years)

lucan is more an old school golf course and always in good nick. castleknock in fairness is well kept too, but certainly is not as well maintained as it was a few years ago. castleknock might be a bit more open and forgiving, but maybe a bit longer. some daft internal OB introduced in recent years and a few poor designed holes just let it down a little. having said that, it's a very good course and well worth playing, it's hard not to enjoy it.

Balbriggan is a great traditional parkland..but gets little or no attention or mention...

I came up with 27 in County Dublin north of the Liffey alone, excluding Par 3 courses. From East to West approximately:

1. Howth
2. Sutton
3. St Anne's
4. Royal Dublin
5. Clontarf
6. Island
7. Donabate
8. Balcarrick
9. Corballis
10. Beaverstown
11. Portmarnock
12. Portmarnock Links
13. Malahide
14. St Margaret's
15. Corrstown
16. Sillogue
17. Forrest Little
18. Swords Open
19. Roganstown
20. Hollywood Lakes
21. Skerries
22. Balbriggan
23. Bellewstown
24. Elm Green
25. Westmanstown
26. Castleknock
27. Luttrelstown

I've played them all except Portmarnock and Malahide! All decent courses, some great value too.

I think 6 are links.

played a good few parklands this year in the Jimmy Bruen, they would break your heart. Especially in a 4 some where anything off line is behind a bloody tree. Between that and the non qualifying part of the year I think I will stay with my links club

My course is fairly mature in terms of trees and periodically they thin out some of them. A handful tbh rather than a mass clearout.

I queried this one time with one of the committee while I was picking up the game. They said it's purely for playability. If you've found trees, it's automatically a bogey at best for most of us. No point in having to chip the ball out twice sideways from dense trees and then get back on track.

Being slightly offline and basically getting the same penalty as an OB would just piss off members and societies would avoid it. We're not an elite links venue that's known for difficulty or charging mad money to transatlantic guests. For the club to survive we need a full membership that's happy to play and societies/open day visitors delighted to come back every year. The course playability is part of that, as is the website, pro shop, back office and bar/food service.