With one Ryder cup venue firmly in hand, Ireland has secured its place as the natural destination for many seeking fantastic golf holidays. But if you leave The K Club out of our discussion, Ireland can still dazzle the golf travel enthusiast with over 400 courses spread across an exquisite geography.

Separated from mainland Europe almost 8000 years ago, Ireland is the 3rd largest island in the continent and home to a little less than 6 million people. A mild, temperate climate peppered with generous rainfall leaves Ireland’s landscape lush and green earning it the sobriquet of Emerald Isle. It only helps a golf vacation that Ireland is also blessed with a variety of geography from plains and river sides to sandy beaches. You can stride out on every kind of surface on a golf tour in Ireland!

Colonized by Celts during the Iron Age, Ireland has a deep storied history that has molded it into its present form. Apart from its contribution to literature and arts, today Ireland is also famous for golf, attracting thousands of people worldwide looking for fascinating golf holidays. Some of the most easily recognizable courses that your tour should look to incorporate include Portmarnock, the Royal County Down, Waterville, Tralee and Royal Portush. Other favorites on most golf tours are the newer courses like Mount Juliet, The Old Head of Kinsale and of course, The K-Club at Kildare. But the top spot for many golf visitors to Ireland is the wonderful links course of Ballybunion. Wild and rugged, particularly when the Atlantic wind blows, for many it is the truest of links experiences.

A lot of individual golf travelers may get flabbergasted with the sheer quantity of courses available. For instance Northern Ireland has over 80 courses set in breathtaking coastal settings, for parkland options try counties Armagh, Fermanagh and Tyrone. If you are heading west, look for the unparalleled links of Donegal and Mayo. Most courses in the western and the north western regions fall on the Atlantic coast with stunning views of the ocean breaking on the shoreline

Spectacular courses in and around the city of Cork offer parkland and heath terrains and other must haves on your golf tour roster down south should be Carlow, Kilkenny, Wexford and Wicklow. If you are one for natural, undulating terrains then the Irish midlands must certainly figure in your golf vacation. However, your Irish golf tour would be incomplete without a visit to the south western courses in Clare, Kerry and Limerick.

A golf holiday in Ireland can be as expensive or as economical as you carve it out to be. For instance a round at the K-Club can leave you out of pocket to the tune of 235 If you plan to save some for extra Guinness, try courses like Carrick-on-Shannon between 30 and 45. Green fees vary from course to course but are mostly affordable although PGA Tour Pros like Tiger Woods and Mark OMeara have made it popular enough for prices to go north a bit.

Most courses are easily accessible by surface transport and getting there is easy. Make sure you have reservations, though, and that your accommodation is planned ahead.

Nature has spilled its bounty across the country and the Irish have added luster with some of the finest golf courses. With unrivalled courses, a golf vacation in Ireland can send you back satiated yet thirsty for more.