The Amateur

The Amateur Championship | Ballyliffin course profile

The R&A

16 Jun 24

3 mins

A venue described as a ‘”must play” by Rory McIlroy, who once held the course record, Ballyliffin Golf Club follows in illustrious footsteps in becoming the fourth Irish links to host The Amateur Championship.

Royal Portrush, Royal County Down and Portmarnock have previously hosted the Championship, won in the past by the likes of Bobby Jones, Sergio Garcia and José María Olazábal, and Ballyliffin will add its name to the list for the 2024 showpiece. The club is home to two Championship courses and sits on Ireland’s northern tip in County Donegal, where the surrounding mountains and towering sand dunes combine to provide a glorious backdrop.

Rich history

Formed in 1947, Ballyliffin was a nine-hole course until 1973, when the Old Links was brought up to the full 18. The 72-par Glashedy Links, designed by Pat Ruddy and Tom Craddock, followed in 1995, and both courses will be in play over the course of The Amateur Championship, with stroke play qualifying to take place on the Old Links and Glashedy to host the match play rounds. Ballyliffin is no stranger to putting on major events. The 1998 Women’s Irish Open, won by Sophie Gustafson, was held at the course and the men’s equivalent followed two decades later – the first time the Irish Open had been held in Donegal. Erik van Rooyen, Andy Sullivan and Jorge Campillo each ended the week as joint holders of the new course record by carding 65s across the week, edging out McIlroy’s 66 from 2006, but none of the three came away with the trophy. That went the way of Russell Knox, who sunk a 40-footer on the 18th to join Ryan Fox at the top of the leaderboard on 14-under-par and then landed another in the first hole of the play-off to take the spoils in stunning style.

Scenery

Both courses at Ballyliffin are packed with scenic holes but the 13th on the Glashedy Links, known as Bun a'Chnoic (Bottom of the Hill), is the feature. Golfers play uphill between the dunes on the 571-yard par-5, with bunkers placed at the landing zones either side of the fairway as well as off the back of the green, making accurate approaches essential. The last of Glashedy’s three par-5s comes at 17 and is part of an intriguing home stretch which concludes on a 452-yard final hole, where players need to navigate carefully between the dunes and approach an 18th green sitting in a hollow. As with any links course, wind conditions play a key role at Ballyliffin – no more so than at the par-3 7th, a steep downhill hole featuring a green surrounded by bunkers on all four corners and water to the right.

Scotland's Russell Knox won the 2018 Irish Open at Ballyliffin on the first hole of the play-off to take the spoils in stunning style.

Member efforts

Members pride themselves on continuing the ‘spirit of Ballyliffin’, made up of a selflessness and good-humoured willingness to muck in, which came into force during the club’s humble beginnings in the 1940s and 1950s. While the greens and fairways which await the world’s leading amateurs this summer will be perfectly manicured, members in the early days would often be found bringing their own lawnmowers to cut greens before rounds as well as checking on and cutting the wire which was in place to keep out animals who grazed on the fairways. It was the enthusiasm and vision of Ruddy and Craddock which later came to the fore when the Glashedy Links was added. Ruddy, a noted golf course architect and writer as well as a highly competitive amateur player, recounts the tale in his book Ballyliffin: Golf’s Great Twin Miracles.

Special venue

Originally tasked with improving the bunkering on the existing Old Links, Ruddy recalls that “when we got to Ballyliffin and I saw that the club had almost 400 acres of beautiful dunesland, it was my turn to swoon. “What a great place. What a great opportunity to build another great golf links. Forget about bunkering the links you have,’ I urged, ‘let’s build a world beating second links.” Work involving significant earth moving began in 1993 and the first tee shot on the new course was struck by Jimmy Cuddihy, captain at the time, on 3 August 1995. Nearly three decades on, the club remains steeped in its local community and has proved a hit with some of the stars who have taken on its unique challenges in recent times. Graeme McDowell described Ballyliffin as a “special, special place – the conditioning, the layout, the people – everything is just perfect”, while Jon Rahm, who shot consecutive rounds of 69, 67 and 66 on his way to a share of fourth at the 2018 Irish Open, also had kind words to say. Next on the agenda is The Amateur Championship, when the stunning surrounds of Ireland’s most northerly golf club will come to the fore once more and pose a stern test for those looking to etch their name on to a treasured trophy.

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