It is always sad to say goodbye – but, there are always more adventures on the horizon and one must move on to experience them.  And so we said goodbye to St. Andrews and ventured to the Emerald Isle – the land of 40 shades of green.  It took taxis, planes and automobiles to get us there but, the days worth of travel was worth it when we pulled up to our ‘home’ for the next two days!!

The Slieve Donard is an historic old hotel opened in 1897 near the village of Newcastle in Northern Ireland.  It has hosted royalty, presidents and golfing legends.  The bar is even named for Charlie Chaplin – a frequent.

The grounds and views were stunning sitting on the Irish Sea with Newcastle and the Mourne Mountains to the south and east.  The bright blue sky didn’t hurt the scene either!

Our room here was wonderful;-)!  A nice size with a heavenly bathroom that Gary could move around in quite nicely – – and a view to kill!!

Yes – Royal County Down, just adjacent to the hotel and our next 18 holes.

Friday, May 19 – The Royal County Down Golf Club, Championship Links

Opening March 23,1889, Royal County Down is another beautiful old course – originally designed by Old Tom Morris.  The Championship course has hosted various tournaments – most recently the Irish Open in 2015.  In fact, Rory has also been a guest at the hotel – and now E & G!!

It is 10:30 and we are off (notice blue sky and no hair blowing) – –

There were NOT as many bunkers – especially those HUGE, DEEP ones – on this course, but that doesn’t mean we managed to avoid what was there;-(

Despite the bunkers, The Royal County Down was definitely one of our favorites on the trip!!  We would return here in a minute if Scotty could just beam us over.

The stay at Slieve Donard was not nearly long enough but Portmarnock was calling.  So – after a beautiful day of golf, a VERY relaxing massage at the Spa and a lovely ‘room service’ dinner we loaded up the rental car and headed back south to the outskirts of Dublin.  Suddenly the weather decided that it had been all too kind to us and we deserved a wee bit of the REAL Irish weather.  We didn’t mind it so much on this travel day – just kept our fingers crossed that it might improve for our last day of golf.

Not only the weather was a BIG change for us!  Portmarnock is a suburb of Dublin, The Republic of Ireland – and a ‘beach town’ to boot.  So we were immediately thrust back into the city rat race from the idyllic ‘rolling hills, country’ settings.  Perhaps a little walk along the Irish Sea to get some dinner would clear our heads and get us in the right frame of mind – –

 

Sunday, May 21 – Portmarnock Golf Club

Portmarnock Golf Club is built on a peninsula about 2 miles long jutting into the Irish Sea (think wind and rain!!).  It opened in 1894 and was the venue for the first Irish Open in 1927.

All our ‘good weather luck’ ran out on this Sunday – –

 

And so ended the golfing portion of our ‘Bucket List’ trip;-)  Our fortunes were great – in that every other day we had outstanding weather to play FIVE fabulous, historic courses and walk in the footsteps of legends of the game!!  Each of the pictures carries a long story that will be a part of our memories (for as long as we have our memory).  Many emotions came up while writing these blog posts – as we reviewed and sorted thru the pictures and came up with the words to describe them.

Now – it is time to tuck those memories away and head to Dublin to meet up with friends.

REALLY HAPPY to have done this trip – Lots of Love, E & G