cork golf course

Cork Golf Club sited at Little Island just five miles from the city of Cork came about by chance. In 1898 members of the Royal Cork Yacht Club, the oldest such club in the world were out enjoying the sea air when they happened upon a piece of land that would be ideal as golfing land.

Dr. Alister MacKenzie was broached on the subject to be course designer which he duly obliged. Harry Vardon while playing an exhibition match had given his stamp of approval in 1909 to extra land where the course was extended.

There is in the very middle of the course a quarry and a story states that many of the skyscrapers in New York and Boston can trace a limestone origin to that quarry. The Par 3 7th and the 8th are played from the bottom of the quarry and its intimidating effects are touched on the 11th also.

John Redmond states “ no mention of Cork Golf Club can be made without reference to Jimmy Bruen", the club's most illustrious son, in the opinion of most the greatest Irish golfer ever. In May 1938, taking part in trials at St. Andrews for the selection of the British and Irish Walker Cup team, Bruen, on his first outing on the Old Course, returned a 71 and repeated it – and followed that up with a 68 and a 72. It was a startling performance of which Henry Cotton wrote “ Fancy a 17 year old doing 282 in four rounds on the Old Lady of St. Andrews.”