The signature and soul of Inniscrone is likely No. 13, a par
4 that
plays uphill off the tee between a series of unkind bunkers along the
right side and an ancient, undisturbed farming road on the left, lower
side.
“You can get some very playable lies in that road,” says Hanse,
“or you can have
a lie that forces a minimal lay-up. But even though
the bunkers along the right
are a classic type of hazard—the kind that
signal a good player to favor their
side of the fairway—we put a bunker
right-front of the green that actually makes
the left side, toward the
road, a better route.”
If Hanse hadn’t revealed this nuance, a player might not
understand
the challenge of No. 13 until he had played it several times. So you
begin to see the concept—a course that exposes its secrets over time,
like a
photo coming slowly into focus as it develops.
At the end of No. 13 stands a 350-year-old tree that also
decorates
No. 14 tee. While this ancient oak serves as the club’s logo, it is
tucked deep in the property and, despite its colossal size, feels like
an objet
trouve. Inniscrone’s signage and printed materials make a
fairly subtle use of
this icon, to go along with the subtleties from
tee to green on each hole. What
matters is that the tree’s longevity in
that spot is saluted by the
course-builders’ determination to surround
it with a golfscape hand-tooled such
that it also seems to belong to a
pre-modern era.
Par: 70
Yardage: 6,657
Year founded: 1997
Architect: Gil Hanse
