Gone are the heady days when people were happily paying hundreds of euro for the pleasure of pulling their hair out in frustration, at the frequent downpours and returning red faced and windswept 4 hours later to the club house. Oh what a funny game golf is, destined to enslave us (as witnessed by many golf widows) or drive us to the asylum, whichever comes first. What other sport encourages such fashion faux pas as men in garish bright clothes – as though it were perfectly normal, drives men and women to near distraction with air strikes, dropped balls, bunkers, divots and the list goes on…. Yet despite all of that, the challenge of beating that little white ball (that has never knowingly done anything to upset anybody) in to submission remains stronger than ever. Visit any public golf course in Ireland throughout the week and even quite a few private ones and you will be amazed at the love affair that continues with the game of golf in Ireland.
In fact one of the positive things that has come out of the recent down turn is that the price of golf has fallen dramatically in Ireland in the last 18 months in some cases by up to 70%! (Some courses have been accused of fleecing people with exorbitant charges, but I say if people were stupid enough to pay inflated fees in the first place, well then fair play to the golf clubs). Ireland had gained an unfortunate reputation for being very expensive for the real ‘beautiful game’ and was already starting to suffer before the downturn happened. Now however, golf courses like many other businesses have had to re-evaluate their product offering and are actively back in the market trying to drive new business. Cork is just one of many areas that has re-looked at its golf proposition and there are now many options for playing 18 holes at exceptional value with midweek prices starting from just €20.00 a round(an unheard of price until recently) . Finally, the peoples revolution is winning with the game being reclaimed ‘by the people for the people’. In fact Cork golf has really gone full circle and the future once again is looking bright with some of our world class courses such as Fota Golf Resort (with 3 courses) and the John Daly designed Blarney Golf Resort leading the way and ranks as one of the best regions for golf in Ireland…… Interested?
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