Monday 14th March 2011 – Rory, Paddy and us….

By Sam Blackwell We thought about switching our scheduled tee time at Rosses Point in Sligo to a day later to ensure we wouldn’t have to battle sleet again.  Monday morning was chilly but dry, so off we drove to a course rated among the top 10 links courses in Ireland and Great Britain. Padraig Harrington and Rory McIlroy are both past winners of the Western Ireland Championship played each year at Rosses Point.   The challenging course is situated between the Atlantic Ocean and flat-topped Benbulben Mountain, a spectacular rock topped by snow this time of year. Rick, Mike and Virgil took me on their team for this round. Following us were Michael, Joe, Gary and a Norwegian golfer named Sven who is traveling around Ireland playing all the links courses. [SinglePic not found] Carts on golf courses are rare sights in Ireland but carts are available, an accommodation perhaps to Americans’ expectations. In America the golfer who walks has become a rarity.  Mike and Virgil have been riding in a cart the first two days of our trip. Mike rides because he has bad knees from football injuries. Virgil probably rides to keep Mike from feeling lonesome. Benbulben seemed to follow us as we made our way around the course.  When the sun broke through the clouds the mountaintop appeared to be on fire.  The scenery on this course is a spectacular mix of mountain, sea and vegetation that look almost exactly the way they did eons ago.  It’s easy to get mesmerized by the beauty, but the difficulty of the holes does get your attention. Because of the wind off the ocean, some of the par 4s were unreachable for our group. Bogey was a good score on those holes. Mike is the King of the Short Game on our tour. Off the tee he hits a short fade, followed by a faded approach shot and never more than two putts or a chip and a putt.  Mike’s play helped our team win the day’s best-ball competition. Afterward Joe said that he didn’t know whether to fly his approaches to the hole or to bump-and-run them.  That dilemma is one of the beauties of links golf. Sligo is William Butler Yeats country. He lived here and is buried here at Drumcliffe, where his father was the Presbyterian church rector. After golf and lunch, Kevin drove us to the poet’s grave to take pictures. [SinglePic not found] Tonight we’ll go to another pub – about 750 are listed in Ireland’s West/ North West Golden Pages — and might even dance an Irish jig. Traditional music is played almost everywhere.