Waterville Golf Links Club

If you’re up to the challange, Waterville Golf Links is quite simply one of the best links experiences you will ever have.

Jack Mulcahy had a dream as big as his pockets were deep. The Irish-born American made his name and fortune across the pond and used a sizeable chunk of the latter buying Waterville House, its salmon-rich river feeding his angling ambitions.

While in residence, locals convinced Mulcahy that his fortune would be very wisely invested in the local golf course, an unloved, overgrown nine-hole a air that had lain dormant for a decade.

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The American was already a member at Winged Foot and needed little convincing, seeing vast potential in a course that had been in existence in embryonic form since 1889. So he hired Ireland’s most celebrated links architect Eddie Hackett, and his friend Claude Harmon, the head professional at Winged Foot. Together, they collaborated to reinvent Waterville Golf Links.

Mulcahy’s vision was simple: to create the most testing links golf course in the world. When it reopened, in 1973, Sam Snead dubbed it “a magnificent monster”, while Raymond Floyd was not alone in describing it as “one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen”.

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In the mid-1980s, Mulcahy sold Waterville to Jay Connolly, a highly decorated Vietnam veteran and fellow Winged Foot member. He hired Tom Fazio to further renew the property.

Fazio made changes to 13 holes and, like Hackett, left the course in much better shape than he found it.

On a nice day it is difficult to imagine a better links than Waterville. The scenery is sublime and the course is fair if you can hit it straight. It is the ultimate location. Totally enchanting, with distant mountains, rough seas, a river estuary, big dunes, and wild hares. 

This is a stunning course in the centre of a stunning natural environment – an amphitheatre on a huge scale. The stunning location may even overshadow the amazing course.

The holes tend to run from elevated tees down natural valleys as the layout cuts through the dunes rather than over them. 

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Over 100 years old, Waterville embarked on a new chapter of its fabled history when American architect Tom Fazio was commissioned to update the memorable Eddie Hackett masterpiece. “Everything about Waterville is truly spectacular – the setting is one of the best I’ve ever seen for golf,” said Fazio. 

The clubhouse has recently seen the completion of a three-phase renovation.

Whether you are dining or relaxing with a drink, the stunning view over the Waterville Golf links course and the ideal setting of Ballinskelligs Bay will most definitely not disappoint. 

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