Today I played Carne Golf Links in Bellmullet, on the extreme northwest coast of Ireland. It was about a three-hour drive from Galway, but well worth it. What a course! This is now my favorite Irish course. I was hitting the ball quite well, but I can’t even bear to repeat my score, because this course is brutally hard! The greens are rock-hard and fast and often funnel off onto hills, so even a careful chip or pitch can end up rolling into oblivion. Many approach shots are blind over huge grass-covered dunes, and the wind was blowing about 30 miles per hour. But it was a blast. Here are some pictures:
Yes — those dunes are as big as they look, and crowd the fairway.
My bag was serving as a tripod — the pullcart handle framed the picture well.
With the wind blowing hard behind me, I smacked my drive well over 350 yards right down the middle on this Par 4 — and it ended up in a bunker!
