11 Lessons from Ireland

Mmmmmmmm personified at Enniscrone Golf Club

If you’re like me, you’ve probably fantasized about playing real links golf. Maybe you’ve pictured yourself on a cliffside tee box, with the ocean crashing perilously beneath you. You’re standing over the ball looking like the Michelin Man in full rain gear as the sideways rain pelts your GoreTex. In this dream you lash a low, stinging fairway finder under the howling air and down a bumpy, browned-out fairway to watch it run for miles. Another gust hits you and you wince. To the outside world you look miserable, as if enduring some kind of forced punishment. And maybe from a sheer comfort and feeling level, you are a touch bit miserable. But you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be — playing the sport as it was meant to be played. This is golf after all, you signed on for twinges of misery in order to make the highs feel that much higher.

Sometime last October I woke up to a text from Mike. There were no words, just an Irish flag emoji and a string of numbers signifying a stretch of days in the last week of that upcoming July. I wasn’t sure if the text was an invitation or a question or just a bit of trip bragging. I didn’t bother finding out. “In,” I wrote back. Pictures of me clad in a cozy sweater, gamely chipping out of a deep, ridged bunker danced in my head. This was my mental image, at least. But, like any daydream, it was two-dimensional — a golfing journey that was about ambiance and setting than anything else. What was missing, of course, were the people. 

How do you adequately describe a trip that, somehow, surpasses the idealized image you’d concocted in your mind? I could walk you through it in excruciating detail — the slightly car sick tour bus joke sessions, the out-of-body experience of walking Carne on a bluebird day. I could rank the courses in order of preference or tell you about the night I lost my voice drunkenly singing along to lyrics I’d never heard before with a rakish flute player who wore an unbuttoned cardigan exposing an admirably hairy chest. I could get very sappy about the whole thing but what I’d like to do is offer a few lessons learned from a week in the land where, I learned, “golf goes to vacation.”

Eli, Mike, & Charlie with the fine lads who run Connemara

Lesson 1: The day you forget the rain pants is the day you need the rain pants.

Your weather app is no good here and you should never trust the words “mostly cloudy.” Rain pants are bulky and unflattering. They make an interminable whooshing sound as your thighs make embarrassed contact with each other and announce your presence well before your group rounds that dogleg in the fairway. It’s not ideal but there’s only one thing worse: Standing on the Eighth tee at Esker Hills and watching a wall of water approach your group like an advancing army and feeling naked knowing your first line of defense is snugly tucked back home in your suitcase.

Lesson 2: You really can find that ball.

Over 126 (extremely poorly struck) tee shots, I only once heard a local tell me I was “dead.” Usually it was the opposite. As my spinny, wobbly ball flight began to slice improbably through supposedly buffeting winds, I’d wince and turn to the nearest caddie and mouth, “gone.” The reaction was always the same. A deep sigh and a serious face followed by the line, “Eh, you should be alright over there, just in a touch of the long stuff.”

To my surprise, this optimism was almost always founded. For every three dollar Titleist gobbled by the knotted landscape, another three would improbably appear buried deep in the tall cabbage. It’s a glorious thing when they come back from the dead. But!

Lesson 3: You probably won’t be able to hit that ball (at least not at first).

You will however become a connoisseur of bad lies. Your ball will land in so many awkward spots — spots that force you to contort your body at inhuman angles — that the initial terror of a daunting shot will, over the week, give way to a begrudging appreciation. Like a sommelier describing how hints of oak dance on the tongue after a sip of a fine French burgundy, you too will be able to anticipate and describe the pleasure of addressing a ball 4.5 feet above your shoe level. There will be cursing, yes. But five nipple-height choke-down seven irons later and you will make flush contact and the ball will soar on its intended trajectory. This will feel better than it did when your first child was born, even if you’ll never admit that to anyone.

Not pictured: Charlie neck deep in heather at The Island Golf Club

Lesson 4: If you have the means, take the caddie.

Other than playing with a local, there is no better way to make sure you enjoy a round of Irish links than to spend a few hours with a local caddie. At Carne, a soft-spoken 16 year-old showed us he knew the carry yardage to every hazard on the course. Greg, a 30 year looper at Enniscrone, made sure I only pulled driver out of my bag twice, and helped our group find angles and slopes we’d never have seen with our dim, American eyes. When I made an eight on a par 3, he congratulated me on my course record and exclaimed after every dismal performance in my group that, “It could be worse; you could’ve had Charlie’s eight!” Twice at Portmarnock, a novice caddy traversed treacherous steep hills to aid my blind shots. 

But the yardages and friendly banter are merely added benefits. What the links caddies of Ireland offer is an education — an introduction and instruction in how to start thinking like a links player. Sharing a round with a seasoned looper or an up and comer learning the ropes is an invitation to immerse yourself in the culture of a new course. Each caddie I spent time with was local to the region and proud to share course history and stories from their hometowns. 

Lesson 5: Local Knowledge is King

I’ll admit I was terrified to play with a member. My anxious brain conjured up images of me spraying tee shots, playing slow, and generally spoiling a good walk. Maybe I’d accidentally offend someone or cluelessly violate an ancient club bylaw, forever tarnishing my member’s legacy. Grateful as I was to the members of the Island Club, I wanted to spare them the indignity of a round with my shaky 14 handicap. 

That was until I met Cillian, a man who, if you discount the performance polo and shorts, looks like he stepped off the set of Game of Thrones. Within seconds of meeting Cillian I was certain of two things: First, the man (and his prodigious beard) was almost certainly capable of pulling tree stumps out of the ground with his bare hands. And second, I was in for a great day. For the better part of four hours, Cillian somehow managed to forecaddie for three people, entertain us with personal stories and a detailed history of the Island Club that no yardage book could ever capture. Oh, and I’m pretty sure he beat me by ten strokes. But more than a pleasant golf partner, Cillian sneakily managed to show me how to approach links golf — joyously, and with a short memory and no fear. 

I don’t want to overstate it, but I left my round with Cillian a different golfer. It wasn’t that he taught me how to get out from the lip of a pot bunker (he did) or help me find 350 barely visible heather balls — it was that he demonstrated how patience and restraint were actually ways to attack a golf hole. Watching him hit soaring approach shots from a grizzled hillside lie and remark, “Oh, I’ve learned to love it when the ball’s down in that stuff,” helped me understand the power and freedom that comes with embracing golf’s challenges, rather than fretting over them.

Cillian spreading wisdom at The Island

Lesson 6: The home field advantage is real.

If you should be so lucky as to employ the services of Fairways and Fundays, you are guaranteed a glorious, meticulously planned trip. You will, like a newborn lamb, be guided around the Emerald Isle encountering golf’s wonders and the country’s beauty. Oysters and Guinness pints will suddenly appear out of nowhere and you will be asked to try traditional Irish dancing under a dazzling July sunset sky. It will be perfect. 

But just know that, despite his expert planning and friendly demeanor, Phil will do everything in his power to organize a Ryder Cup event in which you, the exceedingly average American will be pit against a murderers row of Ireland’s finest athletes. You are, I can assure you, walking into a trap. It’s a set-up. You will lose. The cup will stay in Ireland. So you’ll have to come back.

Lesson 7: You will hit a driver on the par 3 13th at Connemara Links and you will probably miss the green and you will be humbled and you will love it.

That’s basically all I have to say about that one.

Lesson 8: If you don’t know how to hit the putt, hit it straight with solid pace. 

Greg from Enniscrone told me this at the beginning of our round as his cardinal rule of Irish links golf. I never forgot it and neither should you.

Lesson 9: If you spend all day fighting the wind, go inside after the round and have a bowl of chowder. 

Honestly, this one is just common sense. Don’t overthink it. It will heal all wounds.

Lesson 10: Links golf is just better.

Connemara. Carne. Enniscrone. The Island. Portmarnock. I walked off the 18th at each club feeling ways I’d never felt before. Maybe I’d be tired from the walk or a little wind-burnt. But no matter how my feet ached, I trundled up to each club house buzzing. My brain, for lack of a better term, felt on fire. No matter how you play, walking off a links course feels a bit like getting out of a long exam where you knew the answers. Because links golf is a test. It engages your mind, it demands focus and attention to detail. It asks you to plan and to plot. A word you hear a lot about links golf is that it rewards creativity, something I only assumed I understood before playing in Ireland. But my assumptions were wrong. I’d associated creativity with shot-shaping and high level skill execution — the stuff the pros do. But links golf’s test is for all skill levels. Creativity means that there are six ways to get to every hole, each one perfectly valid, provided conditions permit and you plan it out in advance. 

Golf is at its most rewarding when you’re fully immersed and links golf provides ample opportunity for immersion. Calculate the distances, anticipate the rollout, account for the wind, assess the lie, and pick the club. It would be easy if there weren’t endless permutations to consider — each with a risk and a reward. Standing on a tee box gritting your teeth and pulling and replacing clubs while thinking about those pesky fairway bunkers may trigger a cold sweat in most people. But for a true golf sicko, the moment is alive with focus and excitement. In those moments, there’s nothing in your mind but your shot and your game. Full immersion, full escape. A true delight.

Charlie caught posing at Carne

Lesson 11: It’s about the people. 

I’ve long been of the mind that the best way to get to know somebody is to spend an inordinate amount of time stuck in a motor vehicle with them. Inside a car, the road offers time and space and an orientation (it’s hard to look each other in the eyes) that lends itself to deep and eventually comfortable and meaningful conversations. 

I wasn’t exactly sure if this life lesson would hold with the addition of another 24 people, but somehow it did. Trapped in the confines of a coach bus, the 26 of us built something of a rolling summer camp. Perhaps it was the steady supply of Carlsberg or the lush Western Ireland hillscapes that soothed us into amicable banter. Perhaps it was the early mornings, long days, and late nights that broke our bodies down only to build our spirits back up. Or maybe it was the shared experience of going too far down the Chasing Scratch rabbit hole. Maybe it was the simple fact that Gary was on board. I suspect we’ll never know without advances in modern science. 

I do know this much, though: Over time, the good shots and the bad ones will begin to fade from my memory. I’ll never forget the courses, but even their defining features will soften and begin to blur in my mind. What I wore, what I ate, the keepsakes I bought — none of it will stick for good. Even the images of Ireland itself will condense into a rudimentary mental slideshow that I’ll play back fondly in idle moments. But what will remain indelible are the people. The late night pub conversations, the unexpected bagpipers, the indecipherable inside jokes, the tiny, almost random acts of kindness, the post-shank solidarity. All of it has less to do with the particulars and everything to do with the shared experience. There’s a very particular feeling — one that has no real rival in my mind — of beginning a round of golf as strangers and ending it as something different. Sometimes, it’s the beginning of a friendship but other times it is subtler — a recognition of shared struggle or triumph or the fastening bond of a love for the same enigmatic game. There is a joy and exhilaration after 18 holes knowing that, no matter what happened, something happened. 

I will remember Ireland but I will not remember it the way I envisioned when I embarked. Because memories fade, but the friendships and the shared experiences endure. I am confident I will remember those walks back to the clubhouse — scorecards in hands and pints on the mind — and that feeling, however ineffable, that, though the round was over, something meaningful was just beginning.

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