Construction of the new St Patrick’s links at Rosapenna Hotel & Golf Resort began in April 2018, with Tom Doak’s lead associate Eric Everson working alongside Clyde Johnson and Angela Moser to complete the build during 2020.



Rosapenna Golf Resort (St Patrick's Links)
Construction of the new St Patrick’s links at Rosapenna Hotel & Golf Resort began in April 2018, with Tom Doak’s lead associate Eric Everson working alongside Clyde Johnson and Angela Moser to complete the build during 2020.



5.5
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.
As mentioned above, St Patrick’s ranks below Castle Stuart and Dumbarnie for me because I believe there is a weak hole on this course (or to be fairer, it is a hole that could be substantially improved). The par-3 15th is a short hole (approx. 120 yards) and would be excellent if it was not materially uphill and therefore semi-blind. So, standing on the tee, the hole appears ‘ho-hum’, but looking back from the green towards the tee, the hole looks superb as the bunkering and shaping on and around the green are special - but generally out of sight from the tee end of the hole. By giving it a raised tee, the aesthetics would be off-the-chart good. The vast majority of golfers that play St Patrick’s will have had a great and joyful experience.
This style of course will not be for everyone as it is the antithesis of, say, a typical country club US Open course, where narrow, well-defined fairways and a manifest separation between fairways, semi-rough, rough, bunkers, fringes and greens are (it would seem) mandatory. The opening hole at St Patrick’s sets the tone immediately with a blind drive to a wide, undulating rumpled fairway, attempting to avoid the blowout bunkers on the left whilst trying to find a spot to look at the green which is partially hidden behind a dune. The golfer will know immediately if St Patrick’s is for them. Rosapenna now offers a trifecta of world-class golf. In addition to St Patrick’s, there is the brilliant Sandy Hills course and the quietly understated but superb Old Tom Morris course. (It is an almost impossible task to reduce the number of great holes to four.)
Best par 3 – 5th hole, 150 yards: Carrying on in the same direction as the 4th, with Tramore Beach on the right, this wonderful short hole hugs the ocean, with some scrapped sandy waste areas for much of its length and a huge crater bunker halfway down on the left.
Best par 4 – 14th hole, 360 yards: This is an utterly sensational hole which heads for the ocean before turning right. A huge bunker on the inside of the dogleg right dominates the vista on one side with the ocean animating the left. There is another big bunker left at 100 yards to the green and another on the right-hand side, 50 yards in. Splendid big dunes and mounds run along the right of the hole which continues behind the green, whilst the left-hand side opens up as the fairway runs parallel to the sea.
Best par 5 – 4th hole, 510 yards: Without a doubt the best hole on the course and St Patrick’s ‘all world’ contribution. Playing from an elevated tee with sea views of Sheephaven Bay on the right and dunes/sandy waste areas predominantly on the left, the hole moves in a gentle left-to-right direction, slightly away from the coast then back towards it. The fairway is wonderfully contoured and noticeably narrows at 170 yards from the green. Honourable mention – 16th hole, 480 yards, par 4: A long hole but it plays downhill to the widest fairway on the course. From an area just over 300 yards from the tee, the combination of dunes on the left, an expanse of waste bunkering in addition to further sandy dunes on the right, dramatically narrow the fairway. A glorious view of some huge dunes in the near distance and mountains in the far view gives the hole real impetus. Two bunkers guard the right-hand approach to the green.
David Oliver
Overall rating
4.5
Overall rating
4.5
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