The Tom Doak-designed St. Patrick’s Links opened last weekend in Ireland, giving Rosapenna Hotel & Golf Resort one of the greatest rarities in European golf: a completely new 18-hole layout on true linksland.
Built tight to Sheephaven Bay in the far northern reaches of the Republic, some 20 miles west of the border with Northern Ireland in County Donegal, Doak laid out St. Patrick’s links on nearly 300 acres that previously held two other courses that were shuttered more than a decade ago.
All that acreage gave the highly acclaimed American designer plenty of room to look for the best holes in what would become his first Irish design. Jack Nicklaus had started work on a new course at the site more than a decade ago, but that project was scrapped when the financial crisis of 2008 hit.
Doak and his Renaissance Golf Design team began construction in 2018, and what have been described in multiple early reports as truly fantastic greens were completed in 2019 – because of closures related to the COVID-19 pandemic, the putting surfaces had two seasons to mature before the opening.
The sprawling layout encompasses everything from a 100-foot hill at the center of the course to waterside holes offering tremendous views across the bay. Doak described the undulations in the mostly wide fairways as among the best features on the course, and his videos from the site reveal a truly wild landscape, full of surprise reveals and stunning long views.
The St. Patrick’s Links joins two other courses at Rosapenna: the Old Tom Morris Links originally laid out by Old Tom in 1891 and the Sandy Hills Links designed by Pat Ruddy and opened in 2003, which ranks No. 19 on Golfweek’s Best list of modern courses in Great Britain and Ireland.
No telling yet where Doak’s St. Patrick’s Links might climb on that list, and with some pandemic restrictions still affecting travel to Ireland, it’s not as easy as it normally might be to see the new links firsthand. International travel to Ireland is scheduled to reopen to a greater degree in July, and in the meantime, we hope you enjoy the photos below.