Another giant in Swift country

Philip Reid samples the pristine delights of the Christy O'Connor-designed Knightsbrook golf resort in Co Meath where the average player will excel.

These days, Christy O'Connor Junior's design portfolios read like a globetrotter's guide to dream destinations. St Lucia. Budapest. Portugal. The terrain in each place could hardly be more diverse, the chance to create something different an inspiring one for a player who has craftily switched from using clubs to an architect's pen to leave his imprint on the world's golfing landscape.

As such, given the amount of air miles O'Connor is accruing around the globe in creating new golf courses, there is a touch of irony that his most recent work has been completed closer to home on land that, once upon a time, was occupied by the writer Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver's Travels.

The great satirist lived on land at Laracor, just south of Trim in Co Meath, for over a decade in the early 18th Century and penned a great deal of his work there.

What was once farmland, or in Swift's case, using Teakstown House as a sanctuary from life in Dublin some 40 kilometres away, has now been transformed. The sign for Knightsbrook Hotel and Golf Resort off the Dublin-Trim road leads you initially through what is effectively a building site, with new developments of houses and apartments that provide a microcosm of the property development that is occurring everywhere. Once you negotiate the speed ramps and dust, though, an oasis awaits. While the four-star hotel (due to open on September 1st) is currently under construction, the golf clubhouse is completed and the course, designed by O'Connor, is in pristine condition.

The project was conceived by property developer and hotelier John Cusack, very much a local man. What he did was to give O'Connor a free rein with the golf side of things. Consequently, there was no mad rush to get the course up and running, and the course - with greens constructed to USGA specifications and a creeping bent grass surface - was given time to mature, something which will undoubtedly stand it well.

"You know, the course has turned out to be one million per cent of what I envisaged it would," remarked O'Connor, although the hyperbole is not entirely misplaced for he has succeeded in creating a golf course that is challenging but, crucially, remains very playable for the average player. This is not a course where a player will walk off the 18th green battered and bruised by the experience.

The resort's name is taken from the Knightsbrook river which works its way through the 186 acres used to plot out the new course that adds to Meath's growing golf reputation. There are nine lakes of varying sizes and, in all, there are 14 water features in play, although some of the hazards take the form of small burns that sneak in front of greens or across fairways.

European Tour professional Damien McGrane, a Meath man, has been signed up as the resort's touring player, and Eugene McEneaney, formerly in Ardee, has been appointed as the club professional. Gavin Hunt, who previously worked for a number of years at Powerscourt and more recently Glen of the Downs, is the director of the golf at the new facility. Ronan Carey, from nearby Summerhill, who also previously worked at Glen of the Downs, has been appointed course superintendent.

Rather than undertaking any long walk or even a cart ride to the first tee, you simply walk out of the spacious locker rooms at Knightsbrook and seconds later you are positioned on a first tee that offers a view of a first hole that has a generous fairway. It is a gentle enough opening hole, a par four of 443 yards off the back tees (but 409 yards off the society markers) to a green that slopes from back to front.

A little unusually, O'Connor's layout involves a sequence of two opening par fours followed by a par three, a par five, a par three and another par five. This is then followed by a run of six successive par fours, interrupted by a par five at the 13th, then two further par fours before the next short hole, the 16th, and the first par three since the fifth hole, is reached.

O'Connor has also opted for a finishing par three, and the feature of each of the short holes is that the tee shot is played predominantly over water and, in the case of the 18th, almost entirely so.

The river that runs through the fourth hole, a risk-and-reward par five of 548 yards off the back (a more manageable 494 off the society markers), gives the resort its name.

"This is a possible two-shot hole for the bigger hitters, but it is worked out really good," remarked O'Connor. There is out-of-bounds running down the left of the fairway and there is a devious lake also positioned on the left-hand side of the fairway, not entirely visible off the tee and likely to gobble up any pulled drive.

The fairway, however, has a generous landing area and the bunkers are sufficiently shallow to allow you to play a recovery shot without being too heavily penalised.

The sixth is another par five, running in the opposite direction, and is a slight dogleg. For most, it is a lay-up hole, but you have to be careful not to run the ball into the stream that works its way some 60 yards in front of the green.

Ask Christy what his favourite hole is, and he pairs together the 11th and 12th. This is surprising, in a way, because the finishing stretch of holes from the 14th through to the 18th, where there is sufficient water in play to transform a desert, is a truly wonderful run of holes. But O'Connor's reasoning for nominating the 11th and 12th holes is because "what you see is what you get". In other words, they are very natural holes that will reward good play.

The 11th is a par four of 444 yards off the back tees (421 off the society tees), with water in play down the left hand side off the tee, while the 12th is another long par four of 449 yards (409 off the front markers) that plays uphill to a green protected by bunkers.

The finishing stretch of holes from the 14th, though, are a real sting in the tail. The 14th is a long, downhill dogleg par four of 477 yards (a mere 434 off the front tees) with water only coming into play if you are seriously out of position with the approach to the green. However, that lake is very much in play on the 15th, a par four, where the tee shot is played over the water to a generous fairway. Even should you find the fairway, the harder work has yet to come for the approach is played to a green that is protected by a second lake. This is a really superb hole, one that will cause its share of joy and anguish.

O'Connor's design of the par threes is not for the faint-hearted, for the 16th - 182 yards off the back, 160 yards off the front and 126 yards from the women's tee - is another hole where the tee shot is played almost entirely over the water. Water again comes into play on the 17th, a strong par five, which has a lake running up the left hand side of the fairway towards the green. And, finally, the 18th, a par three over water, is a finishing hole that could well ruin many a captain's day card in the years to come.