Narin and Portnoo

The final stop on my Ireland trip was Narin and Portnoo, a course that Tom Doak described as a ‘remote outpost of golf’ in the yellow Confidential Guide, way out at the western tip of Donegal. This place is a pretty significant trek even from Rosapenna, which is itself about two hours west of Royal Portrush. This part of the country probably wouldn’t have been worth the extra miles for all except the most diehard of golf course nuts (or Ireland sightseers) until recently, but the enhancement of Portsalon and Rosapenna—especially the addition of St. Patrick’s—has certainly changed the golfer’s calculus.

Narin and Portnoo has responded to this with several ‘upgrades’ to the course under the auspices of a new owner, carried out by the biggest name in golf restoration/renovation, Gil Hanse. Now when you show up here after having driven several hours through remote countryside and seeing the rustic nature of the surroundings, you might wonder what someone like Gil Hanse, whose name is associated with big money US clubs like Oakland Hills and Los Angeles, is doing all the way out here. But apart from the owner probably having made it well worth his while, it’s not so surprising when you see the land. Much of it is pretty spectacular: large sand dunes next to high rocky cliffs. Anyone interested in building golf courses would give this site a substantial amount of their time.

You might have noticed that I put the word upgrades in quotes in the previous paragraph, suggesting that I have reservations about what was done here. Now let me start by saying that I don’t exactly know what this place looked like before Gil Hanse came here. Apparently his weren’t the first renovations, with previous renovations having added the current fourteenth and sixteenth holes through the highest of the dunes. But while I also hadn’t seen Portsalon before, my review was almost unequivocally positive and that I had no problem seeing the work that Pat Ruddy had done to the course as an upgrade.

Why am I less certain here? While hole-for-hole, Narin and Portnoo is an excellent course and has a handful of the most exciting holes that I played in Ireland, I feel that the whole is a bit less than the sum of its parts. And that’s because more than any other course I saw in Ireland, there’s a real problem of stylistic inconsistency from hole to hole, with some holes looking like they’ve been here for 120 years and others looking like they were built in the last few years (and some looking like they were built in the ‘mounds’ architecture phase in the 80s and 90s). This is also an issue between the Colt to the Mackenzie and Ebert holes at Royal Portrush, but there it’s only two holes. Here, it’s probably almost half of the course.

Having said that, it’s clear that there have been changes to some of the rustic opening on the farmland portion of the property, namely adding interest to the greens on what were otherwise fairly featureless holes. This work is excellent and was probably a significant improvement over what was there before. And some of the holes on the heavier terrain also have this same rustic feel. It just that when you get into the back nine, with new holes in the heaviest terrain, that the course starts to feel disjunct. It still might be possible that even with the inconsistent style, the new holes are an improvement over what was there before. But I wish that a little more care had been taken to blend everything together or, if it wasn’t possible because the land for the new holes was too severe, that an alternative routing that could have preserved the consistent rustic character wasn’t chosen.


Ok, enough with the general comments. As I mentioned, hole-for-hole, this course is excellent. It starts with the first hole, an almost-drivable par 4 of about 315 yards, another of several excellent first holes that I played on this trip. This one is a bit awkward, but quite brilliant once you take the hole thing in.

The visibility on the drive is kind of poor, but you can see that out-of-bounds cuts in on the right. This might encourage you to keep your drive left. The problem with this is that a small creek cuts diagonally across the hole from short-right to long-left. It’s only about a 200 yard carry if you drive straight out, but becomes substantially longer if you miss left.

If you hug the out-of-bounds, there are also two bunkers about 230 out. But it’s best to be on the right side because the green is deepest from this angle.

It's best to start this hole with an overview because it's tough to tell what's going on from the tee. Assuming a favorable wind, the best line is just right of the green, which is probably a 220 yard carry over the ditch. Just left of the bunkers short and right of the green would be perfect.

You can make out the out of bounds and the bunkers on the right, but not the crossing creek. It's an outstanding driving hole, but also maybe not the best kind of drive for the first hole.

If you go at the green but miss a bit left, you'll be in this ditch below the level of the green.

The green is quite narrow, deep, and best accepts an approach from the high right fairway.

The par 5 second is about 510 yards from the tips and has several bunkers in the middle of the fairway to about 230 yards. These bunkers are on the direct line to a new green on the left, right next to the property boundary. While the land coming into the green is dull, the green itself is outstanding and its location just left of the out-of-bounds fence generates a lot of interest for those thinking of going for it in two.

The fairway bunkers guard the direct line to the green but there's plenty of room right if you're not so ambitious.

Not the most exciting looking second shot

...but the greensite is very well-chosen and there are a lot of interesting contours in it.

from the dunes behind and to the left of the green.

Three is another par 5, this one about 550. The fairway is tame farmland and quite wide, but the hole gets a bit more interesting as you approach the green. The first obstacle is a cluster of bunkers about 110 yards short of the green. Next is the green, which, like the second is heavily contoured, but also has a false front. It’s pretty clear that both two and three are new holes (this one used to be a par 3 plus a par 4) and I think Hanse did a very good job with a pretty uninteresting stretch of land.

Not too much going on in the driving zone.

But bunkering on the approach gives quite a bit to think about.

And the green is another good one.

The next section of the course, working into the dunes, has a nice, rustic feel. Three is a par 4 of 330 yards which isn’t too difficult, but where the wild fairway almost ensures a blind approach. Five is only a few yards longer, but features a more challenging diagonal drive over dunes on the left. You can let one rip on four but here, it’s probably best to play a bit more conservatively.

The fourth fairway is appropriately wild for Irish golf.

A great view back toward the farmland over which we played the first few holes.

A long hitter can go at the green, which is probably about where the sand disappears behind the dune on the left. For the rest of us, 240 out to the right is fine.

The uphill approach is relatively free of complication.

Six is a par 3 of about 135 yards that plays from dune top to dune top. The main challenge here (other than the wind) is getting on the right tier of this steep, two-tiered green.

You'll need a solid short iron here.

Narin and Portnoo goes through a progression on the front nine: tame farmland to moderately heavy dunes…to wildness for the next few holes. Seven is another very short par 4 (~315) and was downwind, making it easily drivable. Except that the green, tucked behind a dune to the right, isn’t really hittable, at least not on the fly. It would take a few plays to figure it all out, but I think that if you hug the dune in front of the green, the fairway contours will feed your ball close to the green or even onto the front. But playing up the left isn’t too bad either—the left side of the fairway feeds balls back into the center.

Not too hard a hole, but I liked it.

The green is just over the dune on the right and the best line is just along its edge. But as long as you don't go too far left, the ball should funnel back toward the green.

The green curls right behind the dune, so the further you can drive it here, the better. The contours will also feed a well placed drive toward the front of the green.

Much, much harder was the 410 yard par 4 eighth, playing back into the wind from a tee jutting out into the ocean. The first issue here is that the fairway ends at a drop-off ~230 yards out…which was just as well because I couldn’t drive it that far anyway. The area between here and the lower fairway approach the green was ground under repair and I’m not quite sure what it all will look like when it’s done. In any case, with this wind (from the W/SW, which I think is common), it will always be a long, very tough par 4.

Uphill and off to God-knows-where on the eighth. Straight into the wind, it was a very uncomfortable tee shot.

If you can clear the drop in the fairway, the approach is straight-forward (and lovely).

You can see the sizable drop in the middle of the hole from behind the green. It's a bit like the twelfth hole at the Addington, where the fairway drops off right where you want to drive it.

Nine, another par 3 of only about 140 yards is clearly a new hole. In addition to its obvious beauty, it plays well, giving plenty of room at the front-left but requiring great precision if you go for pins at the narrower, back-right part of the green.

Very pretty and also very good. Hedge a bit short and left to avoid trouble.

The back right of the green even gets pretty close to the out of bounds fence. A very well-designed green.

A view of the green from the tenth tee.

The par 5 tenth is another wild one. Continuing to play back into the wind, the drive is relatively open but the second plays mostly blind down into a valley about 130 yards short of the green. It’s really important to hit a good drive here so that it’s easy to clear a bottleneck at this point between the obvious junk on the right and a nasty hollow on the left. Less obvious is that if you go at the green over the junk on the right, you actually have about 75 yards of open fairway.

It was a puzzling hole to me at the time but the combination of my photos plus Google Earth shows that there’s a lot of sense to it. It appears to be a very good hole.

The fairway is pretty wide in the landing area but this drive still felt uncomfortable to be because it wasn't clear what was happening on the left side. It drops off.

A similar issue on the approach. It looks inviting enough, but you can tell what's in the valley up ahead. On the left, a bunch of junk.

But if you can clear this gap probably 120 yards short of the green, it's wide open.

And from behind the green, we can see that there's open fairway short and right of the green and that if you have a favorable wind, you could go at the green on your second. It was confusing and unpleasant to play on my one go around, but it appears to be an excellent hole.

While eleven is another very short par 3, it’s also another good one.

Certainly a great setting for golf.

Playing back into the farmland, the very long par 4 twelfth (~460) brings back the rustic feel of the opening stretch. It’s about a 220 yard carry over junk on the right and you want to keep your drive up the right side because the hole turns right and, again playing into the wind, you need to cut off every yard that you can.

This is actually a sneaky-good drive because the right side is less dangerous than it looks and you want to be right to shorten the second.

The approach into the green is simple but that's appropriate because this is easily the longest-playing par 4 on the course.

Thirteen is another longish par 4 to an open fairway, but with a much more interesting (and challenging) approach. This big—and interesting—green is perched on a ledge overlooking junk on the left. While the bunker in line with the green is really well short (40-50 yards), the rough is some of the nastiest on the course. Better to approach from short and right.

While the bunker is well short of the green, there's much more trouble if you take the direct line at the green than if you hedge a bit right.

If anything, the left side is even worse than it looked from the fairway. You'll be luck to find a miss just short and left of the green, let alone play it.

I think my biggest problem with Narin and Portnoo comes in the next few holes and really, the whole closing stretch. Some of them, and especially this one, the 440 yard par 4 fourteenth, just don’t look right. I think that this and the neighboring sixteenth were added a few decades back and whoever bit them did a very poor job, flattening the fairway and making the hole look very artificial. This fairway reminded me a lot of the incredibly disappointing Glashedy Course at Ballyliffin, where Pat Ruddy bulldozed a magnificent landscape to create something that looked like a 1990s American public course in a spectacular Irish landscape (maybe he did the same here?).

I'm sure that some flattening was required to build a playable (and mowable) fairway here, but whoever build this fairway just botched it. It looks completely out of place on this otherwise very rustic feeling course.

The approach has playing value but again, the green looks very artificial and out of place.

But the fifteenth, yet another sub-150 yard par 3, is a Gil Hanse creation and while it fits pretty awkwardly into the routing, is a very good one, perhaps my favorite of the bunch. One, I’ve always been a sucker for an uphill par 3 and this one looks like something out of the Nebraska sand hills.

The fifteenth also doesn't really look like Narin and Portnoo, but it looks fantastic. I think the lack of aesthetic consistency from hole to hole in this section of the course is an issue.

While there was clearly some fairway leveling on the oceanfront par 4 sixteenth (also about 440 yards), it didn’t feel as egregious as on the fourteenth. There wasn’t anything too interesting about this hole but obviously the setting contributes a lot to its merits.

I mean, you can't complain too much about a hole that looks like this.

The view from the other side.

The last two holes couldn’t be more in contrast with each other and make for a pretty awkward pair. Seventeen is yet another very short par 3, this one only about 115 yards. I’m realizing that despite the variety of the settings, the fact that all five of the par 3s are very short is a real weakness. The three on the back nine all feel pretty shoehorned into the routing too.

This is a good hole in its own right but at this point, an additional short par 3, no matter how good, is not really making a contribution.

That brings us to the long par 5 eighteenth, which felt about 18 times as long as the seventeenth. The drive is out over some of the best terrain on the course toward an old green, which I think was the old seventeenth (a hole that Tom Doak found particularly noteworthy). But before we get there, the hole turns right, we have to navigate a cluster of bunkers that turns out to be about 245 yards short of the green, and then the hole runs on and on until we reach the green, just short of the clubhouse.

I’ve played other 625 yard holes before but into the wind, I’ve never played one that felt as long as this. I hit three good shots and still couldn’t get near the green. Honestly, it’s a pretty unpleasant hole to finish and I don’t understand the decision to turn two mid-length par 4s into this monstrosity. Plus, this hole eats up a good chunk of the course’s best land. It’s just a very puzzling hole to me.

This drive covers what's probably the course's best land. I'm not sure that this hole was the best way to use it.

Into the wind, it takes two good shots to clear the cluster of bunkers ahead...and even if you do that, you still have 230 to the green.

I guess at least there isn't a lot of excess trouble on the way.

Narin and Portnoo is clearly a very good course, but also pretty clearly a mixed bag. Actually going back over the pictures while writing this review made me feel that the issue I wrote about at the outset, the stylistic inconsistency from hole to hole, is less of an issue that I thought. It’s mostly the flattened fairways on holes fourteen and sixteen that stand out as a negative in this regard.

But more of an issue than I realized when I was playing and when I started writing this review is the mix of holes and the awkwardness of some of the routing. The course starts with a bunch of short par 4s, then the back nine is a bunch of long par 4s. All of the par 3s are short. While the holes are tight to each other and walking distance between them is never an issue, the course repeatedly uses par 3s to bridge these spaces. Now that’s a good idea in theory, but I have an issue with every par 3 feeling like it’s doing this. Why not make the seventeenth a longer par 3 playing down into the current eighteenth fairway and shorten the ridiculously long eighteenth? Or cut one of the par 3s and make the eighteenth two holes again?

Maybe it’s a bit unfair to change my primary criticism of the course months after playing it from being about stylistic consistency to being about the mix of holes and the transitions between them. But both speak to the same broader issue: the course doesn’t feel like a harmonious whole, more like a collection of parts. And that’s how I felt about it when I finished. To be sure, the parts are mostly very good. The opener is excellent and so are the short par seventh and some of the par 3s. But I left feeling that the course I had just played lacked a bit of coherence, something that I rarely felt on other Irish courses, even though many of those weren’t as good as this one.