Irish Open Or 3M? We’re Going With The Emerald Isle And Lahinch!

Tough choice here.

Another non-descript TPC golf course or the visual jazz that is Lahinch Golf Club on the stunning west coast of County Clare in Ireland?

We’re opting for Lahinch and this week’s Irish Open rather than another very ordinary PGA Tour stop at the TPC Twin Cities.

Minnesota or Ireland?  No contest folks, none whatsoever.

Lahinch is very old, very historic and more fun than, well, consider it has herds of goats wandering the property, they are part of the lore of Lahinch.

In March of 1892 Alexander Shaw, Richard Plummer and a number of officers from the Black Watch Regiment of the British Army went to the west coast of County Clare in search of sand dunes that would be suitable for the development of a golf course. They discovered Lahinch and during a second visit in early April, laid out a links golf course.  The first game of golf was played at Lahinch on Good Friday, April 15th of that year, between Lieutenant William McFarlane of the Black Watch Regiment and William F. McDonnell, a Limerick businessman. Feathers and sticks were used to mark out the course.

Things got serious two years later when Shaw invited Old Tom Morris to design a new links golf course.  Old Tom placed great emphasis on the sandhills side of the links. He said Lahinch was “the finest natural course he had ever seen”.

From that point on, Lahinch grew in stature and legend.

But what about those goats?

The original goats at Lahinch were owned by an old Lahinch caddie named Tommy Walsh.  Walsh lived near the old third tee of the course.  Tommy, in the early years of the 20th century, caddied for the great John Ball of Hoylake (Open Champion 1890) when he travelled to Lahinch in the early 1900’s. The goats were a great guide to the weather at Lahinch.  If they were seen hovering around the clubhouse the weather prospects were not good. But once the goats made their way out to the outer regions of the sand hills, then weather prospects were good and the day was sure to be fine.

In the 1960’s when the club’s barometer went on the fritz, club secretary Brud Slattery hand wrote a note on the barometer that read: “See Goats.”  In 1956, on the suggestion of Dr. Patrick Hillery, the Club approved an emblem incorporating the thistle, the shamrock and the goat.

The goats continue to roam across the links without a care in the world and continue to be a source of amusement these days for Lahinch members and visitors.

But you won’t see them this week during the Irish Open.  With an expected 25,000 spectators a day on site, the club did not want the goats frightened or harassed.  So the goats will take a week’s vacation of sorts on a nearby farm.

The really cool hole on the course is the fifth — a 170-yard gem called The Dell.  It’s a blind tee shot to a green hidden beneath giant dunes.  The European Tour has come up with a novel idea for The Dell.  The organizers have rented the house behind the tee box. And there’s a huge big front garden where they have placed a grandstand.  To the right of the tee box there will be a huge television screen.  When a player hits his tee shot, all he has to do after impact is look toward the screen and they’ll see their ball tracked by a television camera as it goes over the hill.  They’ll know whether it’s on the green or not.

Very show-biz sort of stuff for a very traditional, historic hole.  But there will be beautiful vistas from all over this links course, one of the finest in Ireland.

So think about it for about a nano-second:

One of those contrived TPC deals or one of Ireland’s historic golf landmarks?

Like we said, this one’s no contest.