Royal County Down

Played 01 May 2025

In my golfing life I have had the great fortune to play both insanely scenic courses (Old Head), as well as extremely highly rated golf courses (Royal St. George’s), but I am not sure I have ever played as highly rated of a course that also employed the use of breathtaking scenery. Having played Royal County Down a few weeks after the Trump International in Dubai, there couldn’t be a more stark contrast to the monotonous concrete housing developments to provide an arena for play than Royal County Down.

I think what truly makes RCD very special is the combination of so many great elements of golf. When you start to think about it, it has the ability to blend so many of the most notable features of world class courses in a seamless package without shocking you with contrast (most of the time, there are a few spots where your brain does tell you something is amiss).

We arrived into Belfast City airport as the sun was setting the night before, unbeknownst to me that landing at this airport is a case of seeing only water from the right hand side window until the very last second of hitting the runway. For someone that isn’t great with flying this was not the most welcome of arrivals. Fortunately City airport is so small that it almost feels like a train station, and within 15 minutes of landing we were in a taxi for the hour drive down to Newcastle. For anyone looking to play, the Slieve Donard is very highly recommended, largely for the amazing location/views from the rooms, and partly for the soda bread available for breakfast.

The practice facilities certainly leave a lot to be desired, with a golf buggy shuttle that takes you 5 minutes to the artificial mat range, and a short game practice area that requires enigma level of code breaking to figure out where you are actually allowed to chip. I decided to play it safe and just putted. Granted, I am generally spoiled on the practice facilities front at home, and do need to expect that questionable warm up areas are the rule in the UK rather than the exception.

As a general rule, for courses of this magnitude and especially if I am playing for the first time/once, I will try not to keep score, as I find it can only distract from the enjoyment of the experience. So the commentary is a more general run-down of my experience.

The first 3 holes suffer the curse of the scenery. I am sure they are amazing from a technical perspective, with tons of risk/reward decisions to make, but truthfully I wouldn’t be able to say, as I was too busy looking around at the magnificent coastline, turning around to see the mountains draping over our backs, and into the distance where you could just see a patchwork of grass snaking through dunes of various height. From a scenery perspective, the first 3 holes come close to Old Head from a scenery/aura perspective, but what is impressive is that Old Head requires enormous cliff drops to create that level of jaw drop.

The fourth hole par 3 is certainly one of the most famous holes, and has spectacular views from the back tee’s, but I actually still would say the first 3 holes are the more magical to walk down on. This is probably partly due to the thin into the gorse off the 4th tee which might be clouding my judgement.

From that point forward the scenery starts to gradually depreciate, and the focus on golf starts to take its place, which is actually quite a nice feature, as 18 holes of meditative scenery can be sensory overload, to the point where you ask yourself why you are bothering carrying this much metal with you anyway.

Notable holes:

9th (Par 4): blind tee shot over a big mound, and as you walk over it you get greeted with an expansive valley below, culminating in the town church steeple and mountain range beyond the green. An absolutely magnificent vista that doesn’t even require the scene to make it magical. It also helps this was one of my two birdies on the day (it capped a bad run of 4-5 holes that started to make me question whether I should just caddie for my caddie instead).

14th (Par 3): this is one of the more bizarre holes on the course, and the contrast is a bit too stark for my liking. At the back of the green is the boundary of the course, but it is peppered with a mini forest of trees, the only place you see this on the course. Standing on the tee/green of this hole you feel like you have just teleported into a course in the middle of Austria. It also has water on the left which given the lack of water anywhere else on the course just makes it feel like it’s a flood plain. If there was one hole I would scrap it is certainly this one.

16th (Par 4): I think extremely underrated hole as it is rarely ever talked about, but one of the prettiest on the course. The gorse in bloom really surrounds the entire hole, and rises up around the sides in a way that gives it a feel of spectator bleachers. It provides both amazing isolation, as well as an amazing colour palette to the background, but at the same time it’s not breath taking in the same way as the first 3 holes so you can also appreciate the hole from a golfing perspective.

17th (Par 4): Similar to the 14th, bit of a strange one with this no man’s land bunker in the middle of the fairway. It is completely out of character from all the rest of the bunkers/aesthetic of the rest of the course. I was told it has a Pine Valley vibe, but I am not sure it’s a positive here. It would be like sticking in one patch of pine needles in the rough and saying it makes it feel like Augusta.

Overall, extremely enjoyable experience, and I wish that I had the chance to play it twice, so I could soak the course in from a golfing point of view a bit more rather than feeling like the first time I was in Manhattan. However, is it my favourite course of all time/would I rank it as high as it is? I don’t actually think so. Many people say the back 9 is a lot weaker than the front 9, but I think that is oversimplifying. I actually really like the contrast between the two, and scenery overload can be a negative. However, I think the 14th and the 17th holes are so out of place that it does linger in the back of your mind, and that is not a good thing in my book. There is also a heavy focus on blind tee shots, which is doable if you have a caddy, but I do find a bit robbed of seeing a drive actually land on the fairway. I am generally not a fan of the lucky dip approach as you climb over the hill.

Would I come again? Absolutely, and I hope I do get to play it again.

Would I make it my next destination because I have that strong of a desire to play again? Nah

View from the front of the Slieve Donard hotel on a crisp morning

Landing into George Best City airport. The ability to enjoy the sunset is limited when you have no idea there is no runway visible until the very last second.