Ireland - East - Portmarnock - 7295 yds - Par 72

Portmarnock Golf Club is universally acknowledged as one of the world's truly great links courses and having played it, you will understand why. Located on a small peninsula, which extends into the Irish Sea, Portmarnock is surrounded by water on three sides and laid out in serpentine fashion, with no two successive holes playing in the same direction. Unlike many courses in this respect, Portmarnock demands a continual discernment of wind direction.

The course has some extraordinary holes including the 5th, regarded as the best on the course by the late Harry Bradshaw, runner up in the 1949 British Open; the 14th, rated by Henry Cotton as the best hole in golf and the 15th, which is regarded by Arnold Palmer as the finest par 3 in the world. Invariably rated as one of Ireland's top three courses, like all the greats, Portmarnock offers a strong and potentially hazardous finish. Of the climax, the celebrated golf writer Bernard Darwin wrote: "I know of no greater finish in the world than that of the last five holes at Portmarnock."