With a host of Ryder Cup players in the field, it is fitting that the European Senior Tour’s finest this week tackle a course designed by Ryder Cup Captain Colin Montgomerie, alongside the European Golf Design team.
The Montgomerie Course is set within a 1000 acre walled estate at Carton House Golf Club, which is situated 30 minutes north west of Dublin.
Despite being a parkland setting, the Montgomerie Course is very much reminiscent of a traditional links course featuring rolling fairways, gently undulating greens as well as steep faced deep cavernous bunkers.
It is set on the more open landscape of the Carton House site, offering views of the Rye Water Lake, which comes into play on the 18th.
The course opened for play in 2004, designed by Stanford Eby of European Golf Design, in association with Colin Montgomerie
It hosted the Irish Open on The European Tour in 2005 and 2006, won by Stephen Dodd and Thomas Björn.
Montgomerie said: “In my design, I attempted to go back to a more traditional golf course. I looked at the great courses around the world – Royal Melbourne, Troon, Turnberry – and worked out what is so good about them.
“One thing that springs to mind – bunkering. They are hazards and they work with the prevailing wind. Few holes are straight up and down the wind but tend to be across, which brings the bunkering into play. This is the kind of course where the best players would always come out on top.”
