Carrick-on-Shannon

Carrick-on-Shannon Golf Club was established in 1910, with golfers playing on a course at Ballinamoney. The club then relocated to Lisnagot in 1936 before finally moving to its current site at Woodbrook in 1944, with John McAllister setting out a 9-hole course for the membership. Additional land was obtained in the mid-1990s, allowing Martin Hawtree and his associate Marc Westenborg to extend the course to eighteen holes in 2003.

In Kevin Markham’s book Hooked: an amateur’s guide to the golf courses of Ireland, the author describes the layout as “a short course with a great mix of cleverly designed Lakeland holes(new nine), and simple parkland holes (old nine) where you have tree-lined fairways and you can putt from 40 yards out… with Knock Airport so close, this is easily accessible and worth a detour.”

Measuring 5,767 metres from the back markers, the course is a little imbalanced across the two nines, with the back nine (par 34) playing almost 500 metres shorter than the front nine (par 36), thanks to a configuration that includes three par threes and only one par five. The best holes are found among the new Hawtree nine (holes 6-14) with the par three 8th at Lough Drumharlow and the par three 13th (played to a small narrow green on hillside) the pick of the bunch.