Donegal marks the entry to Ireland’s Northwest
Passage through a land that’s surely the most desolate and dramatic
in all the Isle. A windblown landscape of smoke-blue mountains and forlorn moors
that sweep along towering cliffs above the Atlantic, this terrain is so sere and stark, sheep cannot
even graze here.
Against this rugged backdrop lies an equally punishing links.
Donegal Golf Club is situated nine miles south of town on the Murvagh Peninsula, a claw of land consisting of an evergreen
forest that opens onto broad ridges of dunes spread across Donegal Bay, with the Blue Stack range hovering in
the distance.
More commonly known as Murvagh, this muscular layout fits
snugly into its surroundings. The golf club was chartered in 1960 and members
opened a nine-hole layout the same year at Tullycullion, a patch of land
adjoining Donegal. In the early ’70s, a group of members explored the rushy
dunes of Murvagh and discovered a links-in-the-waiting; the late Eddie Hackett,
the country’s golf architect laureate, was brought in to do the gem-cutting.
Hackett, took his typically minimalist approach at Murvagh,
but cleverly routed the holes using Scotland’s Muirfield as a model. The
front nine runs counterclockwise, tacking around the perimeter of the peninsula,
while the back forms an inner, clockwise loop. The resulting variety of wind
direction and views includes a procession of seascapes featuring the green isles
that form a miniature archipelago in Donegal Bay.
Upgrades since include an attractive clubhouse that opened in
1998 and course renovations performed by Pat Ruddy, Ireland’s
leading contemporary course architect and designer/owner of the highly regarded
European Club. Ruddy reconfigured several greens, added strategically placed
bunkers and angled fairways to bring hazards and natural out-of-bounds areas
into play.
Murvagh’s first four holes run along the estuary of
Donegal
Bay, where rows of oyster
baskets are revealed at low tide. These lovely holes, which overlook the
tree-canopied islets of Belle’s Isle and St. Ernan’s Island, are followed by an
even better stretch—Nos. 5 through 8, which contribute greatly to the course’s
rugged and untamed character.
No. 5, nicknamed “Valley of Tears,” is one of the premier par 3s in
Irish golf. The green is set in a cleft in the dunes, facing Donegal Town across the bay and beyond that the
Barnesmore Gap in the Blue Stacks.
There are two fine straightaway par 5s on the back nine, the
12th and the 14th, the latter guarded by a serpentine creek. The 17th is a short
but exhilarating par 4 that runs out toward Donegal Bay. On the 18th, which turns back to the
clubhouse, Ruddy cut a notch in the dunes so that the drive is no longer
entirely blind.
Donegal Town is a delightful place owing to its
basic Irishness, rather than because of any particular sights or attractions.
The central square, known as the Diamond, is wrapped with festively painted tea
shops, pubs and clothing stores selling the world-famous Donegal tweeds.
