Undoubtedly a wonderful, special golf course which should rise in the rankings even further with added maturity. I don’t rate St Patrick’s Links at Rosapenna (“St Patrick’s) quite as highly its closest rival in terms of chronology, Dumbarnie Links, which is both ‘prettier’ and has more interesting design features. It would have been very interesting to see what David McLay Kidd, Gil Hanse or the Coore Crenshaw team (i.e. I prefer the Coore Crenshaw designed Red course to Doak’s Blue course at the wonderful three course resort at Streamsong, Florida) could have achieved here. Tom Doak was blessed to have this gig (he deserved it from his palmaris of global excellence), and he had some of the finest links terrain to use and a huge amount of land (there used to be thirty-six holes on this piece of land), so it should be world class. 

This is a typical Doak course in that it is super opulant. It requires a good ground game to navigate the green complexes (which are imaginatively undulating and combined with very large greens). Doak’s ubiquitous use of scruffy bunkering and sandy waste areas (the golf course design zeitgeist) is impeccable and the course is, in the main, generous off the tee. All these features result in a course that is very playable and should be applauded for this. His famed natural, somewhat minimalist philosophy is legendary but in reality, it is precise, engineered sophistication.

What Doak has designed here is, without doubt, a modern classic with holes that are very largely self-contained, giving a sense of serene isolation. The drama and the fun continue for all eighteen holes; there is no downtime. Every hole offers something different even if it is just the contrasting location of the de-rigueur scrapped dunes that dominate the look and feel of the course. The mix of blind shots, fairways that are constantly narrowing and widening, and universal undulations result in a continuous and enthralling feast for all level of golfers. Doak is a master of his craft, at the top his game, and the land is so good, he probably cruised this one. Its routing seems so effortless and so engagingly constructed. The expectations were high, as talk of a super course being built on the site had been telegraphed many years previously and the buzz went to another level when news was announced that Tom Doak was the ‘chosen one’. 

For me, an unashamed admirer of Doak’s design philosophy who has played several of his courses, St Patrick’s delivers what was expected. It would be a challenge to exceed expectations as the bar is always sumptuously high. Although the fairways are wide there is an optimum route to obtaining the best score. Yes, this is obvious, but the point I am clumsily making, is that strategic success accompanied by good ball striking will be rewarded, whilst its overall playability should mean that lost balls and big scores are for the most part avoided, even if the golfer does not ‘have it’ that day. That’s how it should be for a course that will not host many professional tournaments (at least that is what I have been told on a number of occasions). The fairways and greens play and flow without distinction and demarcation which means that a putter from off the green can be your friend. It is a design feature I admire and one that is epitomised at St Andrews Old Course and copied extensively around the world. The greens are thrilling, some raised, some punchbowls and there is always movement. They are challenging; however, the sloping never gets comedic.