Royal County Down. Royal Portrush. Lahinch. Ballybunion.

These are the heavyweights. The famous courses that sell out every tee time and host Irish Opens and Open Championships. The ones serious golfers travel to from all over the world. I love these courses, I’ve played them all and I would highly recommend anyone who loves great golf to play any or all of them.

But in the background there are other courses. Courses built with small budgets and by communities.

Carne Golf Links in Belmullet, Mayo is one of those courses.

Carne was built in 1992 by an Irish golf architect called Eddie Hackett in possibly the most remote part of Ireland you can imagine on the Mullet peninsula in a Gaeltacht area of Ireland’s rugged west coast - next stop New York. Gaeltacht areas are those where the Irish language and culture is kept alive.

For years, Carne was like a secret, really only known to those who made the pilgrimage. And making the pilgrimage meant really making it — Belmullet is not on the way to anywhere. You go there because you are going there.

Then the lads from No Laying Up came to Ireland.

The Discovery

If you don’t know No Laying Up — they’re an American golf media company with a devoted following of serious golfers. They’re not the Golf Channel. They don’t do corporate. They act like scouts going out ahead to find the places that the general golfing public might not be aware of and they tell people about them honestly.

In 2019, they decided to check out this course in a remote part of Ireland called Carne.

They fell in love with it and told their audience. Bookings went through the roof. Up until this point, people who knew about Carne loved it but golf is a crowded space so getting the word out there wasn’t easy. The lads from No Laying Up gave Carne the global platform it deserved.

Then Covid happened and the floor fell from under them.

How It Began

To understand why what happened next matters, you need to go back to the start.

A man called Michael had lived in London for years. When he came home to Ireland he bought some farmland in Mayo that came with a 17-part share of nearby grazing land called Carne Banks; this land was described as a sandy wasteland. Michael had never visited it.

One day he asked one of the other 16 owners to take him out there to show him this “sandy wasteland” that he was a part owner of.

They walked onto the land and Michael was blown away.

The dunes were enormous. He had never seen anything like them. Standing there on the edge of the Atlantic looking at this wild, improbable landscape, he had a thought.

I wonder could we build a golf course here?

He gathered with the 16 other land owners who agreed to Michael’s proposition and they approached Eddie Hackett — arguably Ireland’s leading golf course architect — and asked him what he thought. Hackett walked the land.

“These dunes have been here longer than humans. I’ll build a course here alright, but we’re not going to move any dunes”.

He built the course around the dunes rather than moving them. No big budgets. No heavy machinery. The community built it largely by hand and it opened in 1992.

Getting the word out was the problem. Mayo is a long way from anywhere. Carne is a long way from Mayo.

For years, it existed in the golfing underworld.

I remember seeing this Ted Talk from Simon Sinek a few years ago where he talks about how people are split into different categories.

You’ve got the “innovators” who are the ones who will Q outside the Apple store the night before when a new iPhone is released so they can buy it before anyone else. They don’t need to test it first, they pride themselves on being first. About 2.5% of the population are in this category.

Then you’ve got the “early adopters”, “early majority” all the way through to what he calls the “laggards” - these are the people who only buy a smart phone because you can’t get a landline phone anymore.

Simon Sinek called this split of the population, “The Law of Diffusion of Innovation”.

Up until the No Laying Up guys went to Carne, the only ones who played Carne were the “innovators” in Sinek’s language. But NLU introduced the “early adopters” and Carne’s tee sheet started filling up.

On Their Knees

Then along came Covid.

Just when Carne got their big break and was about to take off, everything stopped. The international visitors who had finally discovered Carne couldn’t travel. The momentum was gone overnight. Everything halted.

I didn’t know this story at all until last week when I played Carne for the first time.

My friend Joe and I met Gerry, the chairman and Sarah, last year’s Lady Captain. The 4 of us, standing in the pro shop last week.

Gerry started talking with his Dublin accent, quiet pride, obvious love for the place. The kind of man who when he speaks instantly captures your attention.

Before No Laying Up found them, back in 2019, Carne was doing 2,500 rounds a year. At €65-€100 a round, you’re talking about €200k in annual revenue to maintain 27 holes of golf and a clubhouse on the Atlantic coast of Mayo.

The carpet in the clubhouse had seen better days. Replacing it wasn’t an option. Keeping the lights on was. In Gerry’s words - “we couldn’t afford to buy tea bags”.

“We were on our knees”.

Here you had a spectacular golf course on the edge of the world, built by the community, as a non-profit organisation but they were really struggling.

Gerry is from Dublin. He has no obvious reason to pour his life into a golf club in the far west of Mayo. He came to Belmullet on a holiday years ago and decided to stick around.

He fell in love with it and couldn’t look away - when you see Carne you can understand why.

Tom Coyne Makes a Call

Then Tom Coyne got in touch.

If you’re not aware of Tom Coyne, he’s the Editor of The Golfer’s Journal and has written multiple books including, “A Course Called Ireland” — Tom Coyne played a big part in sending a generation of American golfers on pilgrimages to remote Irish courses just like this one. He’s an overseas member of the club.

Tom knows what good looks like.

When Covid hit, Tom reached out to Carne - to check in on them really. He knew it was a special place and knew they would be struggling.

He asked Gerry if he’d write a diary - “a week during Covid managing a golf course”.

When Gerry came back with the diary, Tom was floored. He got back to Gerry and said, “you have to record a podcast of your diary”.

Gerry got his hands on a microphone and hit record. He talked about the course, the community, what it meant and what he and the team were facing during this pandemic. When you listen to this podcast (it’s about 25 mins) you will likely be floored too.

You can hear the emotion in Gerry’s voice. He talked about how they had to take the hard decision to let staff go from the clubhouse. The only people they could keep on the payroll were the green staff to make sure the course would be in good shape for when they re-open.

If they would re-open.

He talked about how Fergus, the head green keeper, had to take in the flags. Symbolic.

Would the place survive?

In the diary, Gerry talks about how emails were coming in every day of people having to cancel their tee times. Refunds and reschedules were being issued by Gerry and Fiona, the GM at the time. All their hard work and the boost they had received was wiped out overnight.

When the podcast went out, Tom Coyne asked the audience to help however they could. Buy a tee time. Buy something from the shop. Donate if they could afford it.

In the days after that podcast went out, Carne received over 6,000 emails.

Six thousand.

People booked tee times they couldn’t use. People bought merchandise. People sent donations with notes apologising that they couldn’t afford to give more. Carne didn’t have their pro shop online at the time but inquiries were coming in so thick and fast that they needed to get one up so people could buy stuff. They got the website up and running in a couple of weeks and the generosity of the world came through.

Gerry told me this as the 4 of us stood in the pro shop and I could see it still moved him. The outpouring of goodwill from strangers — most of whom had never set foot in Mayo — for a golf club they had mostly never visited.

We live in a world where we’re constantly bombarded with bad news and disasters but fundamentally I believe people are good and I think the reaction from people towards Carne shows that.

Not only did Carne survive Covid.

They got enough money to buy their new carpet.

What We Found

Joe and I drove out last week on a grey morning with dark clouds floating in off the Atlantic.

We stood on the first tee and looked out at dunes unlike anything I’ve seen on a golf course. Enormous, wild, rolling. The kind of landscape that makes you feel small in the best possible way.

At one point Joe disappeared over a dune and I didn’t see him again until the green.

That’s Carne.

You look at a course this raw and rugged and you could expect to make allowances. It would be quite reasonable if there were bumpy greens, patchy fairways — the inevitable compromise of maintaining somewhere this exposed on what had been a small budget.

But there are no allowances to make.

The greens were among the best in the country. We saw lads out working on the paths, improving small details. Taking pride in something that nearly didn’t survive.

In the pro shop I spoke with Sarah, last year’s Lady Captain and who looks after all their socials. You could feel her love for the place in every word she spoke.

It’s 2026. Carne has already sold 16,000 tee times for 2027. They’re not in debt to anyone. They have money in the bank. They can now do all the things they always wanted to do without asking whether they can keep the lights on.

A community golf club in Mayo — built by hand on ancient dunes, nearly killed twice, saved twice by people who loved it enough to tell others about it — is now one of the most sought after tee times in Irish golf.

As I walked upstairs in the clubhouse after the round, I looked down at the new carpet beneath my feet and smiled to myself.

My only regret is that we didn’t play it twice.

If you were ever thinking of going to play golf in Ireland and want to visit Carne the only thing I’d say is do it. You won’t regret it.

If you want us to organise it for you, email me at conor@roam-golf.com or check out our website here and fill out an enquiry. We’ll organise the whole trip for you.

People are fundamentally good. That’s my belief.

Go roaming.

The Caddie’s Line

Eddie Hackett designed over 60 golf courses in Ireland, often for rural communities with modest budgets. He is considered the father of Irish golf course design.

The Read

A Course Called Ireland by Tom Coyne who walked the entire coastline of Ireland playing every course along the way. A four-month long adventure and a 990-hole, 1,967,680-yard, Par 3,895 golf course ahead of him.

The idea, put simply, was to walk the entire coastline of the island of Ireland and play every golf hole along the way, making up what would eventually become A Course Called Ireland.

There are no members, no website, you can only play if you’re invited by the family who own it, the course can go days or even weeks without a single round being played but the course is ranked in the top 50 golf courses in the world. It’s ranked higher than Pinehurst No. 2, Bethpage Black, Seminole, Portmarnock and Birkdale.

When you think of Brazil, golf is likely not the sport that comes to mind. Pele, Ronaldinho, the original Ronaldo or even Neymar are more likely to be what you think of.

So how did this magical golf course in the rainforest of a country not known for golf come to be?

Way back in 1859, the Malzoni family moved from Italy to Brazil. At the time, Brazil had become the biggest producer of coffee in the world with 80% of all coffee produced around the world coming from Brazil.

Like the gold rush in the US around the same time, Brazil was experiencing a “coffee rush”. Those little brown beans promised a world of wealth for those who could crack the market.

The Malzonis, like a lot of Italians, were coffee drinkers and could see the growing popularity of this little drink spread across their country. Even the Pope had recently given his blessing to coffee around this time. So the Malzonis decided to take a risk. They boarded a ship bound for a crossing over the Atlantic from Italy to Brazil to buy a coffee bean farm just outside Sao Paulo.

Over the next few decades, their plan worked and the Malzoni coffee empire grew.

In the years that followed, the family diversified their portfolio and expanded into real estate and other ventures. Rino, one of the sons, actually set up a sports car company called Puma and although I can’t say I’m much of a car fan, based on what I’ve seen, the Puma GT looked pretty cool.

The car company even received investment from Muhammad Ali at one point.

Although there are no publicly available figures that outline the exact net worth of the Malzoni family, they are understood to still be one of the wealthiest families in Brazil with a net worth in the billions.

Paulo, who was head of the family office for many years, is also a keen golfer. He developed a love for the sport during the 1980’s and started travelling the world ticking off every golf course in the top 100 in the world he could before doing what any reasonable man with a few billion dollars and a love for golf would do - he decided to build his own golf course.

Originally, he built a course full of replica holes.

Holes that had made an impression on him from his golf travels around the world. Think, 17 at Sawgrass or the 12th at Augusta. I’m sure the course was cool in one sense but after a while, he decided that his course lacked its own distinct character so he developed a new plan.

He decided to approach one of the most famous and respected golf course designers in the world, Tom Fazio and asked him to build his golf course.

Mr.Fazio has built courses around the world like Shadow Creek in Las Vegas (the most expensive green fee in the world) and was even involved in the remodeling of Adare Manor in Ireland a few years ago, site of next year’s Ryder Cup amongst dozens of other famous golf projects around the world.

At first, Tom Fazio was not interested in this project in the middle of a Brazilian rainforest. He has built enough great golf courses and he didn’t need the hassle of that much travel and living on site away from his family. But Paulo didn’t give up.

Paulo pitched his vision for the course. He wanted to build an incredible golf course with slopes more extreme than Augusta and a course in as good condition as Oakmont but beyond these ideals, he would give Tom Fazio complete freedom to build the golf course in his image. Most golf projects have this tension. The owner has a vision. The architect has a different one. The result is usually a compromise that satisfies neither.

Paulo laid out a philosophy for what he wanted Tom to keep in mind but ultimately, would give Tom free rein (and in all likelihood, a hefty budget) to build the best golf course they could.

Eventually he won Tom over and, along with Tom’s son Logan, they got to work.

Over the next few years they carved their way through the rainforest, moving trees and land to shape their course and in 2015 they opened their golf course which they called, Santapanzienza.

Some modern golf course architects like the idea of minimalism, that is to make the course look like it was just uncovered from underneath an existing plot of land rather than built. Courses like Tara Iti in New Zealand or St.Patrick’s at Rosapenna have this feature and it’s beautiful when it works but this was not possible for Santapanzienza. They had to build a golf course rather than reveal one.

It took them 3 years to produce but what they built has been recognised as one of the very best golf courses in the world (by those lucky enough to have played it). It has dramatic slopes that are apparently more extreme than those at Augusta and the conditioning of the course is at the standard of the very best in the world.

Some golf courses are built for commercial use, i.e. to make as much money as possible but Santapanzienza is not a money making exercise, this was a project of pure passion.

They wanted to build the best golf course they possibly could and maintain it as such. No expense was spared in the building of the course nor with the maintenance of it - the first Director of Grounds at the course had worked as the superintendent at courses like Merion, Oakmont, Aronimink and Shadow Creek - some of the best maintained golf courses in America.

The name ‘Santapanzienza’ translates in English to ‘holy patience’ which, according to those who have played it, matches the experience. There is even a little bridge that runs through the course that lies slightly underwater known as the Jesus bridge - you’re walking on water (well, driving your golf cart on water). They wanted to hide cart paths where possible so as not to take away from the beauty of the place.

What you can read and research about this place is limited which seems intentional but some reviews I read imply they might be open to one day hosting some grand tournament there - I’m sure they would love the South American version of The Masters but whether that’s possible or not is a different question.

You might think that you need to walk on eggshells when you’re at a place like this but from what I’ve read, once you’re inside the property you’re treated like a member of the family.

Whether Santapanzienza ever hosts a grand tournament and becomes known around the world or remains this ultra-private secret known only to a handful of people - I don’t know. But if it does become famous one day, at least you’ll have heard about it before everyone else.

I’ll probably never get the chance to play it. But if you have, I’d love to hear what the experience was like.

And if you like these sorts of weird golf stories then it would mean more than you know if you considered becoming a paid subscriber.

The Read

The Match, by Mark Frost tells the story of one of the greatest matches ever played where 2 professionals, Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson took on 2 amateurs, Ken Venturi and Harvie Ward at Cypress Point - the best golf course in the world. Great read.

The Caddies Line

The green fee at Shadow Creek, another Tom Fazio designed course, is currently $1,250 making it the most expensive public access tee time in America.

I went straight to the wedge section and started taking practice swings with three or four different clubs, careful not to touch the ground so as not to damage the bottom of the club. I’d been in enough golf shops to know this unwritten rule.

I’d heard Cleveland make good wedges so I went with one of those.

We drove home from the golf shop that evening - My Mam, my sister, my mate Kev and I in the car and after we parked the car I took the wedge out of the boot, my Mam walked ahead into the house.

As I lifted my new 60 degree Cleveland wedge from the boot of her green Fiat Punto I heard her shout out “we’ve been done!”. My mate Kev and I looked at each other.

I didn’t know what she meant but when I walked into the kitchen I could see what she meant.

All the drawers in the kitchen were open, paper everywhere, the place was turned upside down.

The back door was wedged open, that must have been how they got in. It was just before Christmas so maybe these guys were panicking about not having any money to buy Christmas presents for their kids. Maybe they were just pricks.

My sister was pretty affected by it. We lived in a detached house on a hill. Slightly isolated so as that winter wore on, any time the wind howled or a door creaked she would panic. Understandable. We got an alarm and now the house has gates all around it, not quite Fort Knox but about as close as you can get for an average Irish home.

It wasn’t that I was unaffected by the experience but I just reasoned that they didn’t get much the first time so they were unlikely to come back.

I was about to have far greater issues.

A few days later I was pretty excited when I got to take my new 60 degree out to the course. Chipping and pitching was my biggest strength. I loved it. I had played in the men’s club championship for the first time earlier that year and the guy who beat me in the 2nd round told me after our match that I probably had the best short game in the club. Maybe he was just being a gracious victor but I was proud of my ability around the greens.

That winter had been wet, pretty typical for Ireland. My first shot with this new wedge was to a tight pin over a bunker, the kind of shot my cocky 16 year old self relished.

I chunked it into the bunker in front of me. Hmmm that was weird I thought to myself.

I chunked the next one too and my mind started racing. “What’s going on here?”. I looked down at the club in search of some answers and saw 2 numbers - one said 60 and the other said 6. The 60 referenced the degrees of loft on the club which I was pretty familiar with. The 6 referenced something called the bounce, I’d never heard of it before. It turns out the less bounce a wedge has, the more it digs into the turf. Most wedges like this have 8-12 degrees of bounce. This only had 6.

Whatever it was, my head became scrambled. I thought, maybe I could ask Mam and Dad to get me a different wedge but straight away I shut off that idea - they had just got me a new wedge and now I wanted another one?

Deal with it, I thought to myself.

My greatest strength became my greatest weakness

But I didn’t deal with it. My greatest strength turned into my greatest weakness overnight. At that age we have a tendency to overthink. I would spend hours on the chipping green trying to get my old flare back but it was gone. Every time I stood over a chip my knees would buckle and the ball that once used to fly in the air and dance around the flag like a butterfly with sore feet was suddenly scuttling off the far side of the green or dying pathetically right in front of me as I’d either chunk or thin one. That lovely sound as I clipped the ball off the turf with spin was gone.

When I got my first job I saved up and bought 3 new vokey wedges - maybe that could fix me but now the damage had ingrained itself somewhere between my amygdala and hippocampus. The summer of when I was 18 I tried my hand at playing at Ireland’s elite amateur level but a 5 handicap with the chipping yips wasn’t going to make many cuts against the best young players in the country.

It went this way for years.

There was a round when I was level par playing the 16th, a reachable par 5 and I was greenside in 2, a chance to go -1 if I could get a simple up and down. I tried to be brave and take out the wedge when a putter would have been the percentage play. I thinned one off the far side of the green and turned a birdie into a bogey. I did the same on 18 and made a double, A round that should have been -1 turned into +3. Also ran.

This happened time and again.

I’d play a match for the club, come down the stretch neck and neck with my opponent only to have a poor chip hand the match to the other guy. I’d shake hands and feel a sense of deflation. “Just bloody chip the ball like a normal person”, I’d mutter to myself on the way to put my clubs in the boot of the car.

It affected my putting at times too with bouts of a rattlesnake coming down my right arm as I stood over a 3 footer. Anyone who has experienced it will know the feeling.

I resolved the putting (that’s a story for another day) but never the chipping.

It became something I managed rather than cured. I was always comfortable with a flop shot for some reason. I think once there was speed involved I was immune. It was the delicate little chips that I couldn’t deal with. Still, I managed to maintain a handicap of 5 or 6 and even broke par once - 14 greens in reg and every time I missed a green that day I could take out the putter.

The £500 Zoom Call

One day I came across a guy on Instagram with the username “cure for the yips”. I watched everything I could on his profile and although he talked about curing people’s problems he never really showed how he did it.

Is this a charlatan or is this legit?

How could I believe this would work? He described himself as a “yips therapist”. I wasn’t aware they gave out degrees for such things…

I reached out to him to find out more about it.

£500 for a single session.

“Are you serious?” I thought to myself. He was in the UK and I’m in Ireland so my options were to travel to him or just take a zoom call. He said a Zoom call would suffice. £500 for a bloody Zoom call.

When I asked him about the price he said, “it’s tricky for me because I have no repeat customers - it’s so effective the first time”.

It was a good line but was it bullshit?

I was 32 at this point so the chipping yips had haunted me for 15+ years. Would I pay £500 to resolve it? Fucking right I would, I’d probably pay £2,000.

If it worked.

After a month or two of debating it in my own head I bit the bullet and booked the session.

Is this guy for real?

I sat in front of my computer and James appeared on the screen in front of me. After exchanging the usual Zoom call niceties we got down to it.

He explained the background of his work to me. “The yips is PTSD for sport and so we treat it using a technique that has been very effective for treating people with PTSD. A specific treatment called havening”.

The way he described it to me was that if you were in a shop one day and a robber came in wearing a t-shirt that read “I love Jesus” and held you up at gunpoint you’d probably be scarred after an experience like that - trauma for lack of a better way of putting it. The next time you saw someone wearing an “I love Jesus t-shirt” even if it was not in a threatening situation you’d break into a sweat and your heart would race. The previous experience is ingrained in your brain and your body reacts in a fight or flight type manner.

The same thing happens with sport. You have a bad experience at the wrong moment and it leaves a mark on you - it affects darts players, snooker players, baseball players and golfers. This “scar” on your brain manifests itself in these sports via an uncontrollable movement, usually in your arm or hand. Your subconscious mind takes over and overrides your conscious mind. Your arm jumps uncontrollably and you can’t override it with sheer willpower.

In the early 2000’s after years of after years of research into neuroscience and how trauma is encoded in the brain, 2 doctors in New York called Dr. Ronald Ruden and Dr. Steven Ruden came up with this technique that they called “havening” - it comes from the word ‘haven’, a safe place.

Their scientific explanation of the technique is that it “generates slow delta wave activity in the brain, which helps release neurotransmitters like serotonin and uncouple negative emotional responses from memories.”

My plain English understanding is that it was designed to help people with real world PTSD and helps unwire the part of your brain where the trauma has embedded itself. It’s almost like you’ve got this scar on your brain and havening removes the scar.

But the technique itself is kinda nuts.

On the Zoom call, James explained to me, “when we’re children, the way we’re comforted by our mother is they stroke our arm and say something like, it’s ok dear your mother loves you very much”. It’s soothing to us as babies and makes us feel safe when we’re scared.

Our brains are comforted by this.

Havening is basically the same thing but for adults. He asked me, “how do you feel when you’re standing over a chip with a tight lie over a bunker?” I replied, “I feel nervous, almost jumpy.”

“Ok good, now what I want you to do is cross your arms and start stroking the outside of your arms, almost like you’re giving yourself a hug”. I start doing this and he says, “ok you said you feel jumpy over a chip shot, start saying the word “jumpy” as you stroke your arms”.

Is this guy for real I thought to myself?

Well I’m here now I suppose, let’s just go with it.

I started stroking my arms and saying the word “jumpy”. This went on for a full 20 minutes. 20 minutes is a long time to repeat the word “jumpy” with your eyes closed while a stranger is watching you. You feel like a bit of an idiot. After a while I start laughing and say, “this is ridiculous” and James says, “yes, it is ridiculous”.

“Ok, now you’ve said you feel jumpy before you chip. When you were younger and your chipping was great, how did you feel?”.

“Well, I suppose I felt excited to hit a chip. Almost cocky, like I wanted to show off to my playing partners”.

“Great, so let’s stroke your arms again and say the word”excited “. And so we went again.

This went on for another 20-30 minutes. The session involved some more discussions but then after 90 minutes we said goodbye and I closed my laptop.

“That was nuts”, I said to myself shaking my head as I got up from my chair and back to the real world.

But I was strangely excited to get onto the golf course.

The following day

The next day I made my way out to Blainroe, my local course, with my cousin who I’d never played golf with before. He had no idea of my chipping yips or my £500 Zoom call from the evening before.

We played 11 holes and I shot -1. I missed 4 greens and got up and down every time. I flushed every pitch and chip shot - I nearly holed a shot from 50 yards over water.

What? Surely that did not actually work?

It did.

A few weeks later I was playing a tournament in Donegal, a 27 hole scratch cup. I stood on the last hole of the tournament +7 for the tournament on a tough golf course. That score might not sound all that great but go easy on me - for me this was good.

I was actually right in the mix to win the tournament. I was playing with the captain of the club and he had told me that +7 for the 27 holes had won the year before.

If I make a par, I could win it and a birdie would give me a serious chance. As I stood on the 18th tee my hands were shaking. I’d never won a scratch cup before.

I ripped a drive down to 40 yards short of the green. This 40 yard shot would be hell on earth for me a month prior but aside from the obvious nerves I didn’t feel the usual jumpiness that I normally felt over a shot like this.

I made a smooth swing and heard that beautiful sound you get when you clip a ball off tight links turf.

I looked up and saw the ball fly beautifully through the air and stop about 7 feet from the flag. Oh my God I thought to myself.

I missed the birdie putt - not a terrible putt it just didn’t drop but I walked into the clubhouse so pleased with myself, even though I didn’t make birdie. I was so proud of myself for the shots I hit on the last few holes but especially that pitch shot on the last.

I looked at the leaderboard - I actually lost by about 5 shots. I laughed to myself. In the end all those nerves were for nothing but I didn’t care. I hit the shot when the pressure was on. I hadn’t done that with a wedge in 15 years.

Last week, I played in the Captains prize and came to the last hole of the 36 hole tournament and had a pitch shot over a bunker from a tight lie. I nipped the ball nicely to 4 feet and holed the putt. Again, I didn’t quite win but I didn’t know that as I stood over the pitch.

That Zoom call was 12 months ago and my handicap has gone from 5.5 to 3.6. The chipping came back but so did my overall confidence. I had been stuck with this limiting belief about myself. Now I can play with the freedom of a 16 year old me. I know I’m never going to play on the PGA Tour and know that in a game like golf nothing is ever permanent.

You’re probably thinking - don’t get ahead of yourself Conor, and you would be right. The dreaded y word could return at any time and if it does, well then it does. But maybe I could beat it again.

But as of now, 12 months in the clear, I can stand over a 40 yard pitch with my hands shaking and back myself to hit a good shot. That feeling - after 15 years of not having it - is worth every penny of that £500 Zoom call.

If you’ve got the yips and want to find out more, here’s James’s website. I make nothing from sending you there. It just worked for me and maybe it could work for you too.

The Read:
Choke: What the Secrets of the Brain Reveal About Getting It Right When You Have To

By Sian Beilock

The Caddies Line: The yips is not nerves. Nerves you can breathe through. The yips takes over before your conscious mind has a chance to intervene. That distinction matters if you are trying to fix it - best not to try beat it with willpower. A technique like havening works better.

There was something about the name of it that I liked. Rosapenna. It’s almost like a cross between Irish and Spanish. It just sounded cool.

Maybe that’s just me.

Last year I made the voyage for the very first time. Every year since 2005 Rosapenna has hosted a scratch cup. Well actually, they host 2 scratch cups on the same day. One of them has names on the trophy such as a 16 year old Rory McIlroy who won the inaugural Rosapenna Scratch Cup in 2005.

That particular event is for the elite amateurs of the country of which I certainly am not.

The other scratch cup is for lads like me. 4 or 5 handicaps who aren’t at that level but want to feel like a tour pro for a day.

A scratch cup is a tournament that pits you against players of a similar level to you. For the top dogs, they play against each other. For us 4 or 5 handicaps, we play in our own category.

It’s probably my favourite type of tournament. You against a field of other players all around the same level - strokes, stress and pride on the line.

Certain scratch cups are in higher demand than others and Rosapenna is in demand so last year I made it a big goal of mine to get into their Junior scratch cup.

I didn’t qualify initially, my handicap was 5.3 and was too high. I was a reserve but a couple of days out from the tournament I was sitting at my desk at work and saw the notification pop up in my Gmail from Rosapenna.

“A spot has opened up for you if you want it?”

I’m in.

I stopped doing whatever task I was supposed to be doing in work and looked up AirBnBs in the area. Two days later I was on the road bound for Rosapenna, Donegal.

It was April, the skies were blue, The Masters was on the following week and as I drove across the country that Friday evening listening to podcasts about the Masters I was giddy with excitement.

Winter was over and golf season was here.

As I neared Carrigart, the town I was staying in, I drove through winding roads of Glenveagh National Park and as I turned a corner the view of Lough Salt opened up to my left. Holy shit, I thought to myself. How have I never been here before? Glenveagh National Park on the way to Rosapenna is just incredible. I was in a special part of the world, regardless of the golf.

I checked into my little AirBnB which turned out to be like the Irish version of a motel you see in the States, a roadside house behind a service station.

Some people in my shoes might have popped their head into a little pub in the town. Instead, I took out every club in my bag and cleaned them in my room.

36 holes tomorrow at Rosapenna. I’m not gonna be hungover for this.

Old Tom Morris - Where It All Started

They started playing golf here 130+ years ago when Old Tom Morris came over to this idyllic part of Donegal and laid out a golf course along the water. This original course was everything us golf nerds love about links golf. Golf through the dunes where you can bump and run your way to a score.

This is the course where I started my day in the scratch cup. It was a beautiful, crisp April morning as I shook hands with my 2 playing partners for what would be a 10 hour day in each other’s company.

I was so impressed with this golf course. The front 9 was beautiful but not along the water.

Not yet.

I turned in +1.

You make your way out towards Sheephaven Bay on the back 9 and then on the par 3 14th you’re just hit with this unbelievable view.

I meandered my way around the place in 79 blows - poor back 9 but overall good enough for a 5 handicap. Any day I shoot in the 70s is a good day in my world. I was still feeling giddy.

This is heaven for me - golf at a new course, card in your pocket, blue skies. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else in the world.

We had a quick bowl of soup and a sandwich and I popped into the pro shop to get a strokesaver for round 2 - everyone had said you’ll need one for the 2nd course, Sandy Hills.

I was met in the pro shop by Frank, one of the owners. He shook my hand and welcomed me to Rosapenna.

“You’re going to love Sandy Hills, it’s even better than Old Tom.”

He told me to come back and play the new one, St. Patrick’s, when I can. I took a mental note of that. Oh I’ll be back, don’t you worry.

Sandy Hills - A Level Above

For 100 years, Rosapenna just had one course, The Old Tom Morris Links, but in the early 2000s the Casey family decided to take a risk and build a new course. They brought in Pat Ruddy, one of Ireland’s great golf architects, to lay out the track.

It turns out, this place is a level above the Old Tom. What a golf course.

This is just so cool, I thought to myself.

The 3rd hole is one of the best par 3s in the country. You’re just hit with this view of Sheephaven Bay but then we made our way to the 6th. After hitting a blind tee shot up a hill, we walk up towards the top of that hill and the whole of Sheephaven Bay just opens in front of you.

Holy shit, I say to myself for the 2nd time in 24 hours.

A 10 on the par 5 8th scuppered any chances I had on winning the scratch cup but a level par back 9 meant I shot 82. The joys of being a decent but ultimately mediocre golfer.

79 and 82, not bad for me. Good enough for about 15th place out of about 60 players. I was happy I didn’t make a show of myself but more importantly, this place had imprinted itself into my mind.

I’ll never forget my first day at Rosapenna.

I headed back to my AirBnB that evening thinking, that could be the best place to play golf in Ireland.

Two top courses in the most incredible setting.

And I hadn’t even seen the best one yet.

The Casey Family - Keep the Main Thing the Main Thing

Rosapenna has been a golf destination for years but although the two original courses are brilliant, neither are quite in the top 10 in the country. They’re both top 20 or top 30.

So in 2012, the Casey family decided to take another big risk.

There was a 36 hole site about 5 minutes away from the main resort at Rosapenna that had been a failed Jack Nicklaus project. Originally, the plan from Mr. Nicklaus and the others involved had been to build a full 36 hole course, hotel, the works. But the financial crash meant that never fully got off the ground.

The Casey family decided to buy that land. They had their own vision.

The previous owners of this site wanted to build something big and grand but the Caseys had a different take.

I read a book a few years back called 7 Habits of Highly Effective People which is now a pretty famous book, but one of the 7 habits was “keep the main thing the main thing.” Businesses who get distracted with other fluff tend to go belly up. Businesses that relentlessly focus on the main thing are the most successful ones.

They asked themselves, what really matters most with a golf course? What makes people fly across the world to play? Is it the clubhouse? The practice facilities? As much as these things are nice, I don’t think many people will spend thousands of dollars and their time to see a pretty driving range.

The reason people talk about Royal County Down, Cypress Point and Pine Valley is because the golf courses are exceptional. Rosapenna already had a beautiful resort and hotel on the site of the original 2 courses.

This new venture would be all about the golf course.

Frank Casey, one of the sons who was now the director of golf, is a proper player having been an elite amateur golfer in his own right. He’s also travelled the world playing most of the best courses on the planet. He knows what good looks like.

So they went in search of someone who could share their vision. There were rumours that they had opened up talks with Arnold Palmer and his golf course design business but they chose to partner with Tom Doak, arguably the best living golf course designer in the world. Doak is the man behind Tara Iti, Cape Kidnappers, St. Andrew’s Beach and many other top new courses around the world.

As construction got under way, Covid hit. Golf travel halted around the world and there was uncertainty about whether it would lift off again but the lads kept their heads down and worked.

They decided that instead of building 36 mediocre holes, they would build one great course.

18 holes.

In 2021, they opened St. Patrick’s. This course was different to The Old Tom and Sandy Hills, which were more traditional links.

St. Patrick’s is wild, rugged, wide off the tee and had some crazy greens. I’d go as far as to say there are no other golf courses in Ireland that looks like St. Patrick’s.

The Casey’s had spent 9 years on this project but had no idea how it would be received.

The fact that the course opened during Covid kind of turned into a positive - the golf world was starved of news stories so this new Tom Doak course opening up in Ireland grabbed attention.

The course opened and people started visiting. But the question was, how would this be received?

In November 2021, GOLF Magazine published their global rankings of the best courses in the world. Rosapenna St. Patrick’s had only opened 6 months prior. Making the top 100 was not on anyone’s radar - this was the top 100 golf courses in the entire world.

Not only did they make the top 100, they debuted at 55 in the world. The highest entry of any new course in the rankings. Mr. Doak and the Caseys had built something special.

St. Patrick’s Links - The Reveal

I’d gone all the way up to Rosapenna for the first time in April but I had to come back as soon as I could to see St. Patrick’s, so here I was in August. I’d only ever played one Tom Doak course before, which was St. Andrew’s Beach in Melbourne, and it had become one of my favourite courses there alongside Royal Melbourne and Kingston Heath. The rankings had suggested St. Patrick’s was better than St. Andrew’s Beach but I needed to see it for myself.

Myself and my mate Joe drove down the long meandering road into St. Patrick’s and jumped out of the car.

“Where’s the clubhouse?” Joe asked.

We looked up and saw a wooden cabin serving as the pro shop.

I smiled. Keep the main thing the main thing.

Joe and I teed off on a beautiful August morning. The first 3 holes were through the dunes, greens were a bit crazy but the course struck me as looking scary while actually being quite forgiving - there was room to miss and the slopes help you, they don’t hinder you.

Then we got to the 4th.

Fuck.

In golf course architecture they call this “the reveal” - a point in the course where you’re meandering along then bang, the view just smacks you in the face. That happened on the 4th where Sheephaven Bay, miles of empty beach and expansive land just opens up in front of you.

The rest of the course is just so fun to play. The fairways are wide so you can just lash the driver and the greens have these massive slopes so when you’re standing on the fairway 150 yards out you can see a slope on the green and think to yourself, if I draw one in from right to left I could use that slope to bring it close to the flag. It’s just such a fun way to play golf.

Tom Doak is not an elite player, he’s not Arnold Palmer or Jack Nicklaus, so he builds golf courses for players like him which just makes sense. The average golfer can get around St. Patrick’s and not feel like the place has kicked lumps out of you.

I love it.

I managed a 76, +5 for the round, and it was one of the most enjoyable rounds of golf I’ve ever played in my life.

Joe and I made our way back to the main resort where I bumped into Frank again.

“Well, what did you think?” he asked me.

“Incredible,” came my response. And I meant it.

Frank then walked us through their thinking. “So many great links courses have greens that repel the ball away from the flag, we wanted you to be able to use the slopes.” It makes for an incredibly fun round of golf.

I’ve since been back to all 3 courses and enjoyed them just as much the 2nd time around. I can’t wait to get back every year for as long as I can.

Get Yourself to Rosapenna

I’ve played a lot of golf courses in my time and driven to Donegal more times than makes sense for a man from Wicklow. I’ll keep doing it for as long as I can.

Rosapenna is a special place. Remote enough that getting there feels like an adventure. Good enough that when you arrive you know immediately the drive was worth it. And with three courses, two of which are top 30 in the country and one of which is top 40 in the entire world, there is genuinely nowhere else like it on the island.

Roam Golf is officially going to be running golf trips from 2027 and Rosapenna is going to be one of our main partners because we love it so much. If you’re keen to play it but don’t want the hassle of organising tee times, accommodation and transport yourself send me an email and we’ll make it happen for you.

Get yourself to Rosapenna. You won’t regret it.

“Not all those who wander are lost” - J.R.R. Tolkien

The Caddie’s Line

Tom Doak is arguably the best living golf course designer in the world. Here are some of his courses worth knowing about if you like this stuff.

• Tara Iti

• Cape Kidnappers

• St.Andrews Beach

• Barnbougle,

• Pacific Dunes

• Pasatiempa

I’ve only ever played 2 of his courses but I hope someday to tick all of them off.

The Read

The Confidential Guide to Golf Courses, by Tom Doak

The Vietnam War was a brutal war. It was also a strange war in many ways - I’m a bit of a history nerd and have done quite a bit of research into it, I’ve even been to the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City. But even after all that I have a hard time wrapping…

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Google told him the answer - mid 20s.

How would you feel if you saw that?

What plans do you make for your life?

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It was a chilly day in April and some of the young lads couldn’t have been older than 15 and here they were, all dressed up heading into the clubhouse looking like little gentlemen. I watc…

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I recently received a wedding invitation, but when it arrived in the post and I saw it was black tie, I rolled my eyes - I didn’t own a tux.

I set aside time on a Saturday afternoon three weeks before the wedding, dragged myself to whatever shop it is that sells tuxedos, and after going through the fitting ex…

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Last year, Scottie Scheffler earned $54.6 million on the course.

That’s more than LeBron James.
More than Super Bowl-winning quarterback Sam Darnold.
And only slightly behind Patrick Mahomes (highest paid QB in the NFL).

Which raised a question in my head:

Ho…

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If someone asked me what golf course I’d most like to play in the world, my answer could possibly be Shinnecock Hills.

Places like Augusta and Cypress Point are of course up there too, but as an outsider looking in, there’s something about Shinnecock that has pulled me in for years.

Shinnecock Hills sits o…

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The message to the industry seemed to be pretty clear. I…

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Before we get into the story, let me give you the numbers.

Kingsbarns Golf Links, which opened in the year 2000:

• Sells between 27,000–28,000 rounds of golf per year

• Has an average green fee of £420 per round — £70 more than the Old Course at St Andrews

• Has no members

• Closes for winter

• Is one of the most profitable and operationally efficient golf courses in the world

The vast majority of people who play Kingsbarns don’t know the story of how it was built.

Landmines and Barley

In 1939, at the outbreak of World War 2, the British army wanted to defend its shores against a potential German invasion. The army put up defences along certain areas of the coastline that they believed were exposed to a German attack.

One such area was a 2 mile stretch of land just south of St.Andrews near the village of Kingsbarns. A series of landmines and defensive structures were put up to defend this wee part of Scotland should the Germans ever decide to invade.

After the war, the land was converted back to farmland for potato and barley to be used for the production of whisky.

Golf, as you know, began in St.Andrews but it was really only in the 50 or so years after the war where travel became more accessible and the average golfer was able to make the voyage to the home of golf.

Throughout the 90’s more and more golfers were making their way over to this special part of Scotland for a once in a lifetime experience in golfing heaven.

By the mid 90’s, demand for tee times at St.Andres was growing with about 116,000 rounds of golf played across the St.Andrews courses each year and the R&A identified that figure was rising by 16% YoY.

For context, as of 2026 The Old Course currently hosts around 50,000 rounds of golf each year and over 280,000 rounds are played across the 7 St.Andrews courses.

It was clear that soon there would be an overflow of keen golfers looking for tee times in the area. It may seem obvious now to build a new links course in the area but for context there hadn’t been a new links course built in Scotland for 70 years.

Two Americans With a Vision

Art Dunkley and Mark Parsinen had both made the pilgrimage to St Andrews and fallen in love with what they found.

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Last week I landed into St.Andrews for the first time in my life. I’m 32 and have been obsessed…

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They wondered, if they bought some land along the nearby coast, could they build Ireland’s next great links course?

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Rich Beem has one of the most interesting and in my opinion, coolest back stories in golf.

In a world where we so often s…

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From Failed Lawyer to Blackjack Dealer

To understand how this place exists, you have to go back to the 1980s. A guy called Michael Meldman had dreams of becoming a lawyer, but he flunked the Law School Admission Test (LSAT). Any dreams Mik…

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There was a college event at County Louth golf club (Baltray). If you know this course you might be aware that the first 6 holes are where you do your score, then you hang on for dear life for the final 12.

County Louth Golf Club, Baltray

I’d started my round quite nicely, I was -1 through the first 5 holes when …

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