Top Ten Golf Course Photos 2017

Here is a list of my top ten golf course photographs for the year. It's been a busy one and a very enjoyable one, too.

1. Portstewart Golf Club, in the weeks before the Irish Open, looked magnificent. For a photographer, the light was glorious. I could have chosen all 10 'best' photos from those taken in these towering dunes... but I've landed on two. The angle for this shot of the 6th green is unusual (the tee is to the right of the sand, about 2 o'clock) but the flag, overwhelmed by the dunes, demonstrates perfectly what you will face at this links.

The 6th green, Portstewart Golf Club

2. The 2nd hole at Portstewart is a short par four. This lone golfer shows the scale of

The 2017 Christmas Golf Quiz

The Christmas Golf Quiz Goodie Box

If Christmas Day proves a touch boring or you just need 30 minutes of quiet time after the turkey feast... take the irishgolfblog 2017 Christmas Golf Quiz. 

There are over 40 questions and I've now added the answers at the bottom of the blog. 

Congrats to Ronan Byrne on winning the Golf Goodie Box. He correctly predicts that Tiger will win the Masters!!!

Enjoy. 

 

Q.30 The 2017 IGTOA Golf Resort of the Year

1. Paul Dunne won the British Masters at Close House, in September. What Irish

Doonbeg's Sea Defences Approved - the Good, Bad and Ugly

The new 14th, looking across White Strand
beach to the resort.

On Thursday 21st December, Clare County Council granted planning permission for Trump Doonbeg to build coastal defences to protect its links golf course. It is little surprise that this permission is going to be discussed on this blog... as it has been in the past.

So let's consider it under three headings: the good, the bad and the ugly.

But before we get started there's one thing I'd like you to consider and it is this: for the

Christmas Golf... Time to Get Planning

Weather be damned... golf is golf... so consider some of the competitions and offers which will be in play over the Christmas and New Year period. There are plenty of them... here are 22 clubs to get you started.

Arklow Golf Links

If you want to find out what's on near you, take a look at the Open Fixtures tab on

Golf Gifts for Christmas 2018

Christmas... I only ever address Christmas once December arrives. The stores that have 'Christmas sections' in August or - worse - play Christmas Music in October, should be pilloried and black-balled for all eternity.

Buying golfers gifts for Christmas can be fraught with difficulty, especially if you're not a golfer. And for those non-golfers tempted to purchase some golfing novelty item, a word to the wise... DON'T. There's plenty of rubbish out there but you'll never go wrong

Video Killed the Armchair Star: New R&A Video Protocols

A working group led by The R&A and the USGA has unanimously agreed to adopt a new set of protocols for video review when applying the Rules of Golf.

And about time too! These armchair pundits, who watch their 60 inch TV HD screens almost praying that a Pro will cock up so they can report it, are now being forcibly retired. So please, please stop and just enjoy watching the bloody game.

I’d like to take credit for this new approach – seeing as the new protocol is one I had

Carne's €100 Winter Golf Offer

Carne Golf Links introduced its Winter Deal a few weeks ago... and it's a seriously fabulous offer. Play Carne as many times as you like, from now until March 2018, for €100.  

To quote Tom Coyne, author of A Course Called Ireland, "In any string of words I might pen over the rest of my life, I might never write a more true sentence than this: Carne is absolutely brilliant. Front nine,

Volunteers Needed - Biggest Amateur Golf Tournaments in the World, at Carton House

 The Golfing Union of Ireland (GUI) and the Irish Ladies Golfing Union (ILGU) will host the World Amateur Team Championships (WATC) 2018 in late August and early September 2018, in Ireland. The two events will be staged at Carton House, where players will be tested on the world famous O’Meara and Montgomerie

Christmas Golf Rush... to Ballyliffin

Next week on Tuesday (Dec 5), in the Irish Examiner, there will be an article (click for link) with lots of golf gift ideas for Christmas. One of the items on that list will NOT be a special deal for tickets for next year's Irish Open at Ballyliffin. It came through a touch too late for my Examiner piece... but it fully deserves to be included, so here goes: 

Following the huge success of this year’s event at Portstewart, the 2018 Dubai Duty