Excellent course made the Irish Open a real game of snakes and ladders

For all the late heroics of Sunday’s victor, the Championship Links at Royal County Down was also a winner, as one of the most traditional links layouts of them all more than stood up to the rigours of the modern game at the Amgen Irish Open.
At 7,185 yards the championship test at RCD is not long by today’s tournament standards, but the nuances of links golf and vagaries of the Irish elements provided a stern and genuine defence against the threat of any birdie fest by Dundrum Bay.
The sun-baked final day turned out to be the softest of the week in terms of conditions. With barely a breath of wind, it was ideal for scoring and a completely different prospect compared with Saturday’s extremely testing conditions, in which crosswinds made every aspect of scoring difficult.
“I think it could be one of the highest winning scores ever in a European Tour event. If I was offered level par right now, I’d be happy to sit here and wait,” was Shane Lowry’s assessment at the start of the week.
Turns out RCD did relinquish more birdies than Lowry’s prediction, with the winning total settling at nine-under 275, seven better than Soren Kjeldsen’s winning score of two-under in 2015.
England’s Paul Waring fired a timely best of the week seven-under 64 on the final day to climb more than 40 places and inside the top 20. Spare a thought for Waring’s compatriot, Todd Clements, who carded an utterly miserable 85 in the company of Rory McIlroy in the third round. However, credit must go to the 28-year-old as he bounced back with a final round 67, a staggering 18 strokes better than his effort 24 hours earlier. It further illustrates the true madness of this game and the unique challenge of this Old Tom Morris design that dates to 1889.
RCD will always have its critics who dislike blind tee and approach shots or bearded bunkers with the potential to throw up unplayable lies. However, the course has been well received by the players, who have enjoyed the unique challenges of links golf. And although every hole commanded respect, there were clear opportunities to make up ground.
The 539-yard par-five first hole was by far the easiest hole of the week. It offered up no less than 237 birdies and 35 eagles. The soft opening was reduced to a “short” par four in scoring terms as players rifled drives so far down the fairway some were playing gap wedges into the green. There were only 27 bogeys and eight doubles or worse.
Unsurprisingly, the 525-yard par five 12th was another of the easier pickings, with 203 birdies and 11 eagles, with just 37 bogeys and 14 doubles or worse. The driveable par four 16th (337-yards) was the third easiest hole with 107 birdies and six eagles.
At the other end of the spectrum, the 468-yard par four 15th and 440-yard par four fifth traded places most of the week as the most difficult hole on the course. In the end, the 15th took top spot, and that was little surprise, it’s one of those holes that screams danger from tee to green.
The 15th coughed up 239 pars, 146 bogeys and 35 doubles or worse, with just 27 birdies all week. Unsurprisingly, the fifth showed similar numbers with 253 pars, 131 bogeys and 25 doubles or worse, and 37 birdies.
It was a real game of snakes and ladders at RCD and those at the business end of proceedings were the players who managed to avoid the biggest snakes, while accepting it was never going to be a week of plain sailing and that dropped shots are inevitable at a place such as Newcastle.
The were a couple of main pressure points on the course, holes 3-5 (respectively ranked five, three and two in terms of difficulty), while 13-15 was almost as treacherous. RCD’s very own Amen Corner at the furthest point of the course ranked ninth, eighth and first in the difficulty stakes.
Winner Rasmus Hojgaard’s tally for the week went something like this; 18 birdies, nine bogeys and the rest pars.
The Championship Links has been a sensational test, and the course condition was praised all week. Links manager Eamonn Crawford and his team deserve huge credit for how the course was presented.
Take the golf course in isolation and it could hold an Open Championship in the morning, it is that good. RCD is a stern, challenging test, but a fair test. Find the short stuff and the course is scoreable.
What prevents RCD becoming a potential Open venue is the logistics and lack of space around the property. It wasn’t the easiest course to navigate for the about 70,000 spectators who came through the gates, and there were certain pinch points around the course. Yes, natural mounds made for great vantage points, but RCD would creak at the prospect of The Open and its considerable infrastructure.
“It’s a major championship-calibre golf course,” said McIlroy. “It’s just unfortunate that we don’t have the infrastructure around the golf course to host something like an Open because if we did, it definitely would be able to host an Open Championship. It’s just limited the amount of people you can get in here and logistically it doesn’t quite make sense. It’s up there with the toughest courses that we play.”
However, as an Irish Open venue last week, RCD more than delivered.