All eyes are on Royal Portrush’s Dunluce Course in Northern Ireland for this week’s British Open (ahem … Open Championship, if you please). This will be the third time the Open has been played at Portrush, following the 1951 event won by Max Faulkner and the 2019 tournament won by Ireland’s Shane Lowry.
But how does the Dunluce stack up against the best courses in Ireland and Northern Ireland? We can look to Golfweek’s Best course rankings for a comparison.
Each year we publish many course rankings lists, and the layouts of Ireland and Northern Ireland feature prominently in three of those: the rankings of top 50 modern courses in Great Britain and Ireland, the top 50 classic courses in Great Britain and Ireland, and the top 100 international courses outside the United States. The hundreds of members of our course-ratings panel continually evaluate courses and rate them based on 10 criteria on a points basis of 1 through 10. They also file a single, overall rating on each course. Those overall ratings are averaged to produce these rankings. The top handful of courses in the world have an average rating above 9, while many excellent layouts fall into the high-6 to 8 range.
With all that in mind, below are the top 10 courses in Ireland and Northern Ireland:
10. The European Club
Average rating: 7.28
Location: Brittas Bay, Ireland
Designer(s): Pat Ruddy
Year opened: 1992
Book your trip to the European Club
9. Carne (Wild Atlantic Dunes)
Average rating: 7.30
Location: Belmullet, Ireland
Designer(s): Eddie Hackett, Ally McIntosh, Jim Engh
Year opened: 1992/2017 (The Wild Atlantic Dunes routing features nine holes that in 2017 were added to nine holes of the original course, which opened in 1992.)
Book your trip to Carne
8. Portmarnock (Old)
Average rating: 7.49
Location: Portmarnock, Ireland
Designer(s): W.C. Pickeman, Mungo Park, George Coburn, Eddie Hackett, Martin Hawtree
Year opened: 1894
Book your trip to Portmarnock
7. Waterville Golf Links
Average rating: 7.50
Location: Waterville, Ireland
Designer(s): Eddie Hackett, Tom Fazio
Year opened: 1973
Book your trip to Waterville Golf Links
6. Old Head Golf Links
Average rating: 7.58
Location: Kinsale, Ireland
Designer(s): Eddie Hackett, Joe Carr, Ron Kirby, Paddy Merrigan, Liam Higgins
Year opened: 1997
Book your trip to Old Head Golf Links
5. Rosapenna (St. Patrick’s Links)
Average rating: 7.66
Location: Letterkenny, Ireland
Designer(s): Tom Doak
Year opened: 2021
Book your trip to Rosapenna
4. Lahinch (Old)
Average rating: 7.96
Location: Lahinch, Ireland
Designer(s): Old Tom Morris, Charles Gibson, Alister MacKenzie, Martin Hawtree
Year opened: 1894
Book your trip to Lahinch
3. Ballybunion (Old)
Average rating: 8.31
Location: Ballybunion, Ireland
Designer(s): Lionel Hewson, Tom Simpson
Year opened: 1893
Book your trip to Ballybunion
2. Royal Portrush (Dunluce)
Average rating: 8.55
Location: Portrush, Northern Ireland
Designer(s): Harry S. Colt, Martin Ebert
Year opened: 1929
Book your trip to Royal Portrush
1. Royal County Down (Championship)
Average rating: 8.94
Location: Newcastle, Northern Ireland
Designer(s): George L. Baillie, Old Tom Morris, George Combe, Harry S. Colt, Donald Steel
Year opened: 1889
Book your trip to Royal County Down
