"If sheer pleasure is the yardstick, then Ballybunion’s Old Course gets my vote as the No.1 in the world.” – Peter Dobereiner, the famous English golf writer.
Dobereiner was doing no more than reflecting the views of the locals who somehow knew, through all of their struggles for survival since the day the club was founded way back in 1893, that the Ballybunion links was an unknown treasure waiting for the outside world to come and discover it. Although the course’s fame did not arrive internationally until the late 1960s, there were hints. The first came in 1936 when the famous English architect Tom Simpson was hired to prepare the course for the Irish Amateur Close Championship one year later.
Website: https://www.ballybuniongolfclub.com/