Almost every time I’ve played a so-called “links course” in the States, I’ve come away thinking it was more contrived than cool. One of the reasons is real links courses, like many in Ireland and Scotland, are firm, fast and mostly brown. Here in the America, they’re soft, slow and green. They’re also not quirky enough. Across the Atlantic, they’re very quirky.

On my first trip to Ireland, I had the good fortune to play the Old courses at Lahinch and Ballybunion, two of the most famous layouts in the world. Two years after Lahinch was founded in 1892, Old Tom Morris was hired to design a new layout. In 1927, Lahinch was redesigned by Alister Mackenzie. Wisely, Mackenzie left two of Morris’s holes intact – the fourth and fifth. The fourth, called “Klondyke”, is a straight-away hole that’s played toward a massive, grass-covered dune in the distance.

After reaching my drive the day I played it, I was surprised to see a wooden shack on top of the dune. Moments later I was even more surprised when a man stepped out of the structure. I was quickly informed that the man’s job was to prevent players on the fourth from hitting into the group on the green, which was located on the other side and completely blind from the fairway.

When the man re-entered the shack it meant the green was clear and we could then attempt to play over the dune or around to the right. In all of my years of playing golf, I had never seen a hole quite like Klondyke. But there was more to come. Upon reaching the tee of the fifth (“Dell”), I neglected to check my scorecard to see if we were about to play a par 3, 4 or 5. Since the only flagstick I could see was up a long rise to our left, I assumed that was where we were headed. To my puzzlement, however, I watched as my host took his stance with a short iron, clearly aimed nowhere near the flag in the distance but at another towering, grass-covered dune maybe a hundred yards away.

“Excuse me,” I blurted, “but what are you doing?”
He turned and looked at me. “I’m playing to the fifth.”

I pointed up the hill. “Isn’t that it?”

He looked at where I’d indicated. “No, that’s the ninth.”

“Then where’s the fifth?”

“Over there,” he said, pointing at the tall dune.

“Over where?”

“On the other side of that dune.”

“On the other side of that dune,” I replied. “How are you supposed to know where to hit it?”

He pointed toward the dune again. “See that white rock up on top?”

“Yes.”

“Every time they move the cup,” he said, “they line up that white rock between the tee and flagstick. That’s how you know where to hit it.”

Quirky? But wait.

At Ballybunion’s Old Course, a links layout that opened in 1906, near the first tee is an ancient cemetery that runs down the right side of the fairway. No, it’s not a part of the course. But it is a bit spooky.

In the mid-1930s, architect Tom Simpson was hired to make a few improvements to the Old Course. Among the few things he did was put two large bunkers next to each other in the middle of a fairway. As was the custom in those days, the members gave those big, round hazards a name. They’re known as “Mrs. Simpson.”