Hi all,

I'm planning a trip to Ireland for the first time in April for roughly a month. Its primarily going to be for golfing, but I don't want to spend a lot of money. So my rough plan is to stay in hostels and go from place to place to golf. I've read that the southwest has the most prestigious courses but also by far the most expensive. I'm a guy that would prefer a course similar without the bragging rights and 1/3 of the cost. So I heard the North and Northwest golfing is a good place to go. My question is, would traveling through hostels, renting a car and setting tee times by myself be worth while comparing to spending a lot more money to plan through a Golf Travel company and stay in hotels. I'm not looking to spend more than 3-4k for the month on everything there everything included if that's possible.

There are some wonderful, reasonably priced courses in the west. Strandhill (near Sligo) is my favorite course on the planet, as are (going west) Enniscrone and Carne. Heading north from Sligo you can play the fun-but-not-a-links-course Bundoran, head to Donegal (a bit pricey and tough, the course record is, I think, 68), Narin and Portnoo, then Cruit Island (9 holes) and you'll get lots of wonderful, fairly priced links and linksy golf. If you do head to the SW be sure and play 9 hole Castlegregory. A very fun and challenging course. Good luck. Enjoy. Don't worry about your score.

Jeff

I agree with Jeff, Enniscrone and Carne are great, you can also add the courses at Rosapenna and Ballyliffin. I haven't played the other courses mentioned

I think you have a great plan. You'll save a lot and have the flexibility to play when and where you want to play. You can make times at the last minute if you wish.

But I hope you save so much you play once at Tralee. Such a beautiful course. Two rounds for 120 euros in April.

I haven't used it for Ireland but this is a discounted golf website that does last minute bookings, if nothing else it shows quite a few of the courses in the different regions of Ireland

http://www.golfnow.com/west-northwest-ireland

thanks everyone, yea ill try to use golf now over there, i just want to make sure that I don't go over there for nothing if I don't have a plan. I just want to make sure its possible to do all the things or at least most of the things that the expensive golf tours do.

Well - you can;t do all of them - since most include castle stays and 3* dinners. I'm not sure about hostels with gold clubs (unless you are renting at each course). I would think B&Bs a lot safer for the clubs.