An impression of what may lie in store from brittasbayclub.ie

There were always two kinds of people when it came to assessing The European Club, or what has now been re-baptised the Brittas Bay Club following its acquisition by the Conlan family last summer.

There are those who, score be damned, loved Pat Ruddy’s inimitable style and the sheer audacity required for a humble golf writer to craft a links with his bare hands and make it a championship challenge.

Ruddy attracted the likes of Tiger Woods to play his dream course — all 20 holes — watched Rory McIlroy win his second Irish Close there and then saw Padraig Harrington claim Irish PGA wins he credited for his back-to-back Open Championship victories in 2007 and 2008.

"There is no question that there were shots at The Open that I was better at because I had played links golf at TheEuropean Club the week before,” Harrington said. “The European Club is a great links that you have to think your way around."

Woods set a course record 67, called it “a great links” and praised the many optical illusions, while McIlroy said, "This is probably the best links course I have ever played, and I include Royal St. George’s, Royal Portrush and Royal County Down in that. It's just the definition to it with the sleepers in the bunkers.

“It is totally unbelievable. I love courses where you really have to think your way around. It gets me focused much more.”

Woods, Harrington and McIlroy are not common or garden hackers, however, and many hated the railway sleepers in the bunkers and found the course an impossible test, especially those who chose the wrong tees.

Many visiting scribes loved its charms, though Charles Pierce, a Boston Globe Magazine writer, summed it up in 2007 when he thanked the man who handed two sleeves of complimentary balls on arrival.

“‘No problem,’ he said. ‘We're going to get them all back today anyway.’ He was right. He got all six of mine back, plus about eight of the balls I'd brought over with me. Even though the course was set up for my (admittedly eccentric) left-to-right drives, any time the ball rolled more than a foot off the fairway, it was gone forever. The local flora devoured every part of my game except, well, me, and that, I suspect, was only because I never went looking for my ball in the gorse.”

The estimable Mr Ruddy reluctantly parted with his life’s dream for an undisclosed fee from Kildare motor dealer Raymond Conlan (73), whose son Nicky (34) will run what will now be known as The Brittas Bay Club.

While Ruddy didn’t get the €35m guide price he wanted, he left, he said, with “saddle bags… comfortable”.

A rendering of a potential new hole at Brittas Bay

The final purchase price is believed to be in the region of €29 million but it will likely cost another €16m to transform the Brittas Bay Club into a must-play international venue — €10m rebuilding and regrassing the course, €1.6m on new irrigation, another €1m on equipment and around €6m on the new, 4,000 square foot clubhouse.

It is closed for the rebuild — or renovation — with US architect Kyle Phillips the man finally charged with getting the job right after the Conlans had sought advice from a host of contenders, believed to include Martin Ebert and Beau Welling, among others.

“When I first spoke to Kyle, I was immediately inspired by his vision for the golf course,” Nicky Conlan said. “I think his reputation is second to none when you look at some of the courses he’s designed.”

Add another €2.2m as the cost of remaining closed until the planned re-opening in early 2027 and the pressure is on Phillips, not to mention John Clarkin of Turfgrass Consultancy and contractor Esie O’Mahony from Golflink Evolve, whose previous work includes Royal Birkdale, The Old Course at St. Andrews and Turnberry, to get this right.

“This isn't a five or 10-year investment,” said Nicky Conlan, who insists they have no sleeper partners and are not planning to flip it quickly. “We’re in this for the long haul, though you can never say never.

“This is a 20-30-year plan in my mind and that's why anything we do now, we do it to the absolute maximum and we get the very best out of every nook and cranny we can here and hope that when we are finished, that we have something truly unique and special.”

While he recognised the “off the charts” potential of the links after playing it with friends, there was one big “but”.

“No golfer would walk in off Portmarnock and say I don't want to play that again,” he said. “No one would play Waterville and say, I don't want to play there again. But that happens here…

“So we want to be in a position where it caters to every level of golfer can enjoy their round and come in off it and say they had a great experience.”

His feelings were confirmed when he played the course with his mother and father, long before it came to market.

Proposed new entrance via brittasbayclub.ie

“Such was the difficulty at the time, Raymond said, ‘Don't ever bring me up here again’.”

So what now?

Those who know the course will find it transformed for the 2027 re-opening, and while the new course will use many of the corridors through the dunes, only the eighth and 11th will look familiar, as many other holes are played in different directions.

It will go from being a par-71 with just three par threes (adios 7A and 12A) and only two par fives to a par-72 with four par-3s, four par-5s, and 10 par-4s of varying length.

There will be just 18 holes, not 20, and five sets of tees ranging from just over 5,000 yards to 7,350 yards from the tips.

Bunkers will be revetted — no sleepers — with the routing also offering more holes with sea views.

“One of the fun things about links golf is having multiple lines of play,” said Phillips, whose portfolio includes Kingsbarns and Dundonald (Scotland), Yas Links (Dubai), The Grove (England), and California Club (California). “Our intention is to get the most out of the land and the best result we can within this beautiful property.

The new greens will be one and a half times bigger than the originals, and more generous landing areas will play to green sites offering more generous surrounds and more of those Texas wedge recoveries the US visitors expect at a links.

The clubhouse will be mostly levelled and a new one erected on its foundations with the bar and restaurant upstairs.

The 90 members will be offered the chance to rejoin without a fee, but the annual subscription and visitor green fees are still undecided at a top-tier venue that experts calculate will have to do 12,000 rounds a year at €450 a pop to make this work.

There are no plans for a hotel, but on-site lodges are being considered.

As Phillips explained: “Nicky paid real money for this and needs a result. It's a good golf course and it's an amazing site. And I think if we can get the golf course up to the amazing site level, then it would be mission accomplished.”

The tern features in the new logo for the Brittas Bay Club

The key to the project will be the total re-grassing of the site.

“It's a bit like Adare Manor,” Clarkin said of the brief. “Give us the best-conditioned links golf course in the world. So in order to do that, you have to look at regrassing the whole golf course and fixing the irrigation…It’s about fescue, it's about pure links. It's about marram grasses. It's about stabilising the dune systems.”

Walking the course, Phillips set about working out how to achieve more sea views by utilising “a bit more of the middle section near the sea.”

“You'll move a different way through the property,” he said, pointing out that a “point to point golf course” that took driver out of a player’s hands in a lot of places will be made more playable and accessible.

“We need all handicaps to be able to play it,” Phillips said. “That's the feedback I'm looking for.”

The environmental issue is a challenge when it comes to golf course development and it remains to be seen what obstacles, if any, emerge.

Nicky Conlan is certainly conscious of that and revealed that the new club logo will feature the tern, which nests on site and plans to donate a percentage of each green fee to protecting that bird.

Seamus Heaney described the “cold tern’s cry” as one of life’s “everyday miracles” and golf lovers will be hoping to see Mr Ruddy’s former playground remain sacred golfing terrain for generations to come.