The Emerald Isle

I’m stepping out and writing about something other than a bicycle ride at the request of friend and golf buddy, Dan Lamey. Dan is one of the half dozen or so dedicated followers of this boondoggle so I figured I’d humor him. I’m also following in the footsteps of riding partner Dan McCormack who recently diverged from the path on his blog - Rideworthy - and wrote about a summer canoe trip. Here’s to the Dans.

As some of you may know, I completed another decade last week. As some of you might also know, our youngest daughter, Colleen, has transferred from NYU to University College Dublin (UCD). She starts school next week and moves into her dorm tomorrow. Knowing we’d be coming over to drop her off, I told Kelly that all i wanted for my birthday was to bring my clubs over and play golf in Ireland. We are also traveling with my mother-in-law, oldest daughter and her boyfriend. Conveniently, we have two rental cars. One for me and my clubs and one for everyone and everything else. Works perfectly.

I have played two of the five rounds I have scheduled so far. The first was at Ardglass, a little town in Northern Ireland on the Irish Sea. We had wind, but no rain. I played with two other guys from the States and we had a couple of caddies. Today, I played a more challenging track called Ballyliffin. Back in the Republic but on the far northwest coast, looking out toward the Atlantic. This course has hosted the Irish Open and recently the British Amateur.

Here’s what I’ve learned about Ireland and Irish golf so far:

• if it hasn’t rained since breakfast, it’s a drought

• the drought is over

• the strategy over here is supposedly to hit the ball low and let it roll forever

• the strategy is a pile of crap. The only time the ball rolls forever is if there is a sand trap in the way with a 6 foot wall.

• or if you don’t hit it quite far enough on an uphill hole. Then it rolls forever back down the hill into the aforementioned sand trap

• don’t slice the ball into the wind

• if you do hit it in the sand and the sand is wet, which it almost always is, it’s like hitting out of a pile of old tennis shoes. (We’ve used this phrase before, but I think it might be new to this blog)

• when it starts to rain, the best place for the 3 golf towels I usually have on my bag is not at home in the dryer.

• when it starts to rain, the best place for the rain pants is not the front seat of the rental car

Today’s round I played by myself, carrying my clubs. The first two holes were great. By the end of the 2nd hole, the first few raindrops had fallen. By the 3rd tee box, I was switching to my “rain” gloves. This was the first sign of trouble. At home, I don’t play in the rain. I have been caught out a few times and I have an umbrella and rain gloves. The rain gloves come in pairs and actually help your grip when the club gets wet - to a point. I opened the umbrella and searched for the gloves in my bag. I found one. That’s the equivalent of snorkeling with one flipper. To recap, I had no towels, no rain pants and only one glove so my right hand was soaking wet. For what it’s worth, so was my left hand in about 15 minutes after the one glove had soaked up as much water as it could.

By the 3rd green, my pants were sticking to my legs. By the 5th hole, I had accumulated enough water in my shoes that I was thinking about the people that put their feet in a tank of water and little fish swim around and eat all the dead skin. On the 6th green, I was standing in a sand trap when I heard the unmistakable sound of my bag falling over. I turned and looked and saw my umbrella making a break for the Atlantic. I dropped the sand wedge and sprinted, as only a water-logged old fat guy can, about 100 yards across the fairway and up into the tall fescue before finally catching up to it. When I got back to my bag, I just folded the umbrella up and walked in the rain for the next 7 holes. I think I took on more water than the Titanic. At least it was only kind of windy.

Clubhouse at Ardglass.

They say at Ardglass on a nice day you can see Wales (pronounced Wheels). No one has ever been able to prove that.

This is where I learned about slicing into the wind. At least one of my golf balls is in that nice dark green gorse down the right. Fun fact: the little houses over on the right are the original Coney Island and is the subject of the eponymously named song by Van Morrison, who used to vacation there as a wee lad.

Umbrella Street in Belfast. For those that are interested, Belfast is a worthy destination. So is Derry (or Londonderry if you’re not Catholic).

Tried to “split the G” on a pint, but ended up a wee bit short.

That would be the Atlantic from some waterlogged viewpoint at Ballyliffin. I have a few other pictures but all you can see is nothing because of the rain and clouds.