Natural beauty abounds at Enniscrone Golf Club. This sumptuous links course is located on 400 picturesque acres in County Sligo. Cascading sand hills dominate the landscape while behind them the waters of Killala Bay ebb and flow at the mouth of the River Moy Estuary. Further still are the Ox Mountains to the east and the Nephin Beg Range to the west. Everything looks as if it’s exactly where it should be.
With surroundings as beautiful as these, a course of any quality would feel special. But Enniscrone does not simply rest on its aesthetic laurels. What was once a humdrum nine-hole course with roots dating back to 1918 came into its own in 1974, when it was updated by Eddie Hackett.
In his updates, Hackett added another nine holes, amounting to the 18-hole, par 73 links course now known as The Dunes. A third nine has also been added over the years, with Donald Steel responsible for designing six of them.
Hackett’s course puts players to the test from the very first hole. It features a trying dogleg tee shot to a narrow fairway, made only a tad easier by the hole being a par five.
Players are subjected to yet another dogleg tee shot on “Cnoc na gCorp,” the 12th hole. Magnificent surroundings made up of dunes and long straw grass help to soften the blow, but if that’s still not enough to calm your nerves, the Kilcullen Seaweed Baths in Enniscrone village are only a short drive away.