Royal Dublin Golf Club

Though the club was founded in 1885 (and received its Royal status in 1891), the course the club now plays dates to a 1919 redesign by British architect Harry Colt, who revamped the layout after it had been decimated by military use during World War I. The club is located on Bull Island in Dublin Bay, which was created by dredging the waterway, so the soils are pure sand and populated with seaside grasses and hummocks. The course is a cross between a links and golf in the savannah, with largely flat holes that run out and back through fescue fields parallel to the marsh side of the island. The final three holes are a resounding climax and include a drivable par 4 through a network of pot bunkers, a long par 4 with a burn running tight down the right side and one of the most unique holes in the country, the long par-4 18th that bends 90-degrees around the burn, requiring players to hit their second shots over the L-shaped ditch and the out-of-bounds field on the other side of it if they hope to reach the green in regulation. Architects Frank Pont and Mike Clayton completed a bunker renovation in 2023.