Pitchmarks #71 - 3rd November 2024 - (Very) Firm and Fast

Portmarnock, Ireland

I have made something of an art form of ill-preparation of late, culminating in the realisation that I’d travelled to Ireland for some late October golf without a decent hat or waterproofs. I like the experience of seeing a place afresh, and to avoid research beforehand helps in this regard, but at some point common sense ought to assist with the packing of my bags…

But upon approach to somewhere as famous, as fabled, as Portmarnock, it is almost impossible to imagine oneself carrying some tabula rasa into the experience. All of the Championships that have been held there; all the great Champions who prevailed, and a good many more who didn’t quite. We know from the rankings alone that this sort of mission will be special, memorable. Remarkable. As my host this week in Dublin put it, in an earlier, excellent missive (here) that I chose to read after the event, “in these pantheons we experience the confluence of place, history and tradition and bl**dy good golf to boot...”

So we glide along Golf Links Road as it leaves behind the town and the Burrow, Shane Derby and I, and though he knows this place very well, his excitement isn’t far behind mine on this, my maiden voyage to this classic. We pass mouthwatering fescues waving in a gentle wind from the south-west, and he quietly mutters “elegant” as we peer across at a flag tucked in behind the dark shadow of a pot bunker at the seventh hole on the Yellow loop.

And though we share with our host John a few hundred shots and a few thousand words over the next four hours, none seem so apt in hindsight as “elegant”, for Portmarnock could be the perfect definition of elegance. We await our turn in the clubhouse, and marvel not only at the history depicted on the walls and in the cabinets, but also at the restraint shown in such displays. You could fill every wall and more with stories and pictures and memorabilia, but in the careful, thoughtful curation of only the most tasteful, relevant snippets, we get some forewarning of the wonderful course presentation we are about to experience. Nothing flashy or boastful; just consistently excellent delivery.

When the time comes to strike off, I try to not think about the high tide in the Baldoyle Estuary out right, for no ball should get wet from this tee. So I chase one hooking under the wind, and face the same breeze on the second tee, after which the course flings us around in all directions until the seventeenth. The opening run is strong, and thrilling - all fours and fives until the seventh, and the fourth, swinging left to a green hiding in the shadow of a dune, has me staring back down it in disbelief. It looked so simple; I never stood a chance.

The blind drive at the fifth is a rare case of not seeing Portmarnock laid out before you, but even when you can spy what lies ahead - as all of us can from our own spots in the suddenly revealed fairway - you still need to hit the shot. Another green perched at a twisted angle to play; another lesson learned the hard way, approaching from the wrong side. The greens are both wonderful and wicked; full of little ripples and contours, and many are protected by surrounds with turf that most inland Green Committees would kill for, and pot bunkers that stimulate fear well before they gather your ball.

As we battle across this ancient spit of land - a layer of sand upon porous limestone, beneath which lies an aquifer, as Shane explains; a “freak of nature” heaven sent for golf by geological time - the other holes seem to float in friendly isolation, little glimpses of green turf between seams of rough and occasional, vicious pockets of gorse. It seems so gloriously natural by contrast with the industrial marker posts of Dublin’s docklands, but with a scorecard in your hand, Portmarnock must be every bit as gritty. Our cards and pencils remain firmly in our pockets, and I am glad.

A very long time ago, Bernard Darwin wrote of Portmarnock’s closing green that it was “difficult to stay on”, but on a day like today, and I suspect any given day here, that could apply to the other twenty-six greens just as easily. For to call them simply firm or fast would be to understate things by a country mile. These vast, flowing targets are rock solid, as is the rest of Portmarnock’s fescue real estate, and if you manage to hit a shot good enough to make any sort of pitchmark, getting your repairing device into the sward to work its magic is an almost equal achievement to that which created the dent.

Shane and I first connected over a shared love for proper conditioning, and it is no coincidence that his wonderful, passionate podcast (here) and blog are known as Firm and Fast. He set out at about the time this blog started up, looking to talk to people who might “influence the sustainable future of the game of golf that we all cherish”, but if there’s a better example of such stewardship in a club whose past and future includes major events, I’ve not seen yet. So as we trade gimmes and blows and compliments and insults, we also scratch our heads and wonder how golf managed to stray so far from the game we play out here.

At the fifteenth - inserted in 1927 in about the only alteration bar a few new tees as the ball changed - I am informed that this is, for some, the “signature hole”, and we roar with the absurdity of such a notion. For nowhere I’ve been - with the possible exception of Muirfield, with which Portmarnock is often compared - does one links course have such relentless consistency in both design and condition. It is not eighteen holes cobbled together, vying for attention, but a stream of equal and complementary elements that work in harmony to perplex and delight the enchanted victim.

We finish up, and shake hands, and are served a well-earned sandwich by the also elegant Richard, whose face I recognise from St Andrews. I am quiet over lunch, listening to the others chat but also rendered speechless by the links. As the light begins to slip beneath us, and the red & white chimneys of the old power station fade to monochrome, I long to step on that firm turf once more, and feel its stubborn resistance in my leg muscles and through my iron heads. To learn a few more lessons from the Red or the Blue, or to sample the glimpsed delights of the Yellow nine instead.

Only a few miles from the centre of this vibrant, modern city sits an oasis of calm; a meditation in golfing virtue. But what is most surprising is not that the world’s best players could one day fight for an Open here, but that it has never happened before. The issues are complex, for sure, but as an example of links golf, Portmarnock might be as pure as it gets, and to me it sits head and shoulders above some of the other venues in that select group. Its class seems effortless; its elegance inherent. It is the full package.

Darwin’s note on this majestic golfing arena concluded with “the turf throughout is a joy alike to walk or play on, and altogether Portmarnock is a place to leave with a very genuine regret, even in a snowstorm”.

Not that much has changed here since 1910, then. How blessed a situation is this!

With huge thanks to Shane Derby & John O’Neill