Waterville Golf Links: A 'new' course in southwest Ireland that feels centuries old
WATERVILLE, County Kerry, Ireland -- For an Irish links as authentic as they come, it's interesting just how many American influences have helped shape Waterville Golf Links.
At least five prominent Americans have molded this magical modern links flanked by the Atlantic Ocean's Ballinskelligs Bay and the River Inny Estuary. Waterville dates to 1889, although the links fell dormant for nearly a decade in the 1960s. Irish-American John Mulcahy hired Claude Harmon of Winged Foot fame and Ireland's Eddie Hackett to resurrect the layout in 1973.
The legend of Waterville was enough to convince Tiger Woods, Jim Furyk, Ernie Els, Mark O'Meara and Payne Stewart to stop by before the 1998 Open Championship. O'Meara went on to win that claret jug, and Stewart later became Waterville's club captain before his death in 1999. The club erected a statue in Stewart's honor.
Enter Tom Fazio, who completed a renovation in 2006 that created two new holes and shifted a number of greens to open up vistas and enhance the intimacy of the dunes. Waterville's spectacular second and third holes, two strong par 4s, introduce the estuary before the par-3 fourth dives into heavy dune cover. The views of the ocean energize the three finishing holes. American made, perhaps, but blessedly Irish.