Up for the Irish birdies

Author: By Walter V. Robinson, Globe Staff

Date: SUNDAY, May 26, 1996

Page: B1

Section: Travel

So my brother-in-law, John O'Connor, and I, red-eyed with jet lag from our trans-Atlantic trip, approached the clubhouse, hoping to book our first round for the following morning. Veterans of long queues at dawn at public courses at home, we feared the worst.

``Could we possibly get a tee time for about 6 tomorrow morning?'' John inquired of the woman who ran the pro shop and drew Guinness on tap for the club's members.

She looked puzzled. You should have called weeks ahead, I expected her to say. Instead, she said: ``You're welcome at that hour. But we don't open in the morning until 10.''

That said, John and I embarked on a subsidiary Irish vacation. There was ``the family vacation,'' with wives and children, in which we were full participants. And then there was the separate, early morning golf vacation during our two August weeks in Ireland, subtitled: ``While Ireland slept undisturbed, we played golf, equally undisturbed.''

The accommodating woman at Kinsale, and others like her across the country, arranged to leave pull carts outside overnight for the ``two daffy Yanks,'' as one clubhouse pro called us. Most days, we teed off before 6, and were just finishing, or well into the back nine, before we spotted the first local golfer. We paid as we left.

That first morning, we were done at 8:45 when the first local golfer approached the first tee at Kinsale. We stopped to chat. ``It's good to get in an early round,'' he explained. As might be obvious, he was referring to his starting time, not ours.

In two weeks, we played 11 times, never well, but with never a soul in front of us or trailing behind. Most mornings, we were home with fresh scones in time for breakfast.

It is one of Ireland's grand mysteries -- so few people and so many golf courses. In a country with 3.6 million people, there are 360 golf courses, the greatest concentration of courses in any country save Scotland. And the Irish keep building more courses, hoping, perhaps, to lure back many Americans who set sail from here a century ago.

There are Ireland's world-renowned courses, many of them seaside ``links'' courses, such as Ballybunion, Waterville and Lahinch, that have humbled the world's best golfers and humiliated high handicappers, and to which many American golfers flock.

But even at Lahinch, which fashions itself as the St. Andrews of Ireland, and is listed among the world's 50 best courses, we obtained a tee time two days ahead, were first off at the late hour -- for us -- of 7 a.m. and saw only a handful of other golfers during the entire round.

And it couldn't be the cost that keeps Americans standing in queues at home: A round at venerable Lahinch was $45. Most Irish courses charged us just $15 to $20 for a round of golf.

Even at the magnificent new Galway Bay Golf and Country Club, built with American tourists in mind (it offers ``self-drive buggies,'' where walking is the only mode of transport almost everywhere else), greens fees for 18 holes were just $30. And this for one of the best new courses in the world. It sits right on Galway Bay; seven of its holes run along the bay itself; and you can see all 18 holes, the bay and Galway City in the distance from the clubhouse.

If such underutilization is a puzzle, it is one that many in Ireland, and some in the United States, are trying to solve.

``Golfing Ireland,'' a coalition of 40 of Ireland's best courses, but not including its best-known courses, offers package deals designed to lure Americans. In Boston, the Irish-American Partnership (617-723-2707) is actively promoting a trans-Atlantic golf alliance. And Aer Lingus offers packages that include accommodations (often in castles), rental cars and greens fees at a half-dozen courses during a week's stay.

In Ireland, a visiting golfer could hardly expect more courteous treatment. At the private Cork Golf Club, rated the country's 29th-best course, I left my umbrella on the first tee when the rain stopped. Seven holes later, and far from the clubhouse, storm clouds moved in again. Just then, a tractor bore down on us, driven by a smiling greenskeeper holding my umbrella aloft.

Despite its exclusivity, the Cork club welcomes outsiders most of the time, as it did us. But fewer than 4,000 rounds a year are played by tourists, despite the course's renown and spectacular layout, with several holes bordering Cork Harbor.

Though Ireland's oceanside ``links'' courses are the country's best known, the vast majority of Ireland's golf is played inland on ``parkland'' layouts that are identical to American courses -- save for the occasional Irish course that has a castle on its grounds.

To be sure, early morning golf can have its drawbacks. One morning in County Clare, we bounced our way down a series of one-lane backroads to the new Woodstock House Golf and Country Club. We found the course, and the carts they had left out for us. But in the dense fog, we could not find the first tee. In our search, we stumbled upon the 14th green, the 6th tee and the 18th green. An hour later, as the fog began to lift, one of the greenskeepers arrived for work and started us on our way, though he scratched his head in amazement as he watched us tee off into the morning mist.

We never found either ball.