A true gem in the Kingdom

Not quite the lord of all he surveys, especially here in God's kingdom, the Englishman with a hint of a Welsh accent stops the EZ-GO cart and casts his eyes down towards Kenmare Bay. "Good, isn't it?" he whispers, barely audible. Indeed, the view is spectacular but, peculiarly, it is what has happened to the land around the now stationary golf buggy that is perhaps most remarkable of all.

A mere 50 or so yards away, the neighbouring field is a mixture of bog, rock, heather and gorse, terrain hardly fit for a mountain goat. Yet, Roger Jones, the architect of the Ring of Kerry Golf and Country Club, has stopped his mode of transport on lush grass, part of the fourth fairway of a course that has been carved out of the rocky mountainside above the village of Templenoe, Pat Spillane country.

What has occurred here is a modern-day miracle, testimony not only to the ingenuity of man, but also to technological advances. And money, some £5 million of it. A project that started out as a dream in the head of the late Donal O'Shea, a local landowner, back in 1991 has finally been brought to reality. On July 18th, the course opened for play; not with the tag of "championship course," rather one deemed a "world class course" by its designer, Jones.

It is, indeed, a bit special, if still a baby waiting to mature fully.

That it has come to fruition at all is a tribute to those who believed in the fanciful notion that a course could be built on the side of a mountain. Eddie Hackett, one of Ireland's foremost course architects, drew up the original design concept for O'Shea, but sadly neither man was to live to see the dream come true. O'Shea, tragically, died in a car accident in 1994 and, with earth-moving already started, the task of finishing the development was left to two English-based businessmen; Tom McNicholas, of McNicholas Construction, one of the UK's biggest privately owned companies, and Dominic Reid, a native of Ballaghadereen who is a financier in London.

Jones, who'd played in his youth with Ian Woosnam in his native Shropshire and played for Wales as a boy prior to pursuing life as a PGA club professional, was brought in to add his own design thoughts in 1996. By then, he was based in Killarney but among his previous projects was to design a course in an old coal mine in south Wales and so it was that Jones adopted some radical ideas for his new commission.

The most outrageous perhaps was his decision that the entire course would be sand-based, not just the greens. When some friends heard about it, they contacted him and asked him did he know what he was doing. He told them he did. Even so, some questioned his sanity and envisaged the sand scattering in the wind.

During the early stages of construction, considerable bulk earthworks had been carried out to remove areas of bog and unwanted rock - but Jones carried out more detailed shaping and, pretty soon, up to 70 truckloads of sand a day was making its way to Templenoe from a local quarry in Kilgarvan. Instead of blowing away with the wind, it stayed were it was intended.

It was a mammoth undertaking. "There was simply no on-site top soil, so we had two choices," recalls Jones, "either to import local top solid, or to import local sand." Jones, who wanted to design a course that would be playable all year round, chose sand (a concept new to Irish parkland courses) and the result is a course with a sand base of between eight and 10 inches. Intriguingly, he also used the underlayers of rock to develop mounding more reminiscent of links land.

During the course's construction, over 120,000 tons of sand (seeded with a rye and fescue mix) was brought in for the fairways and tee-boxes; the sand for the greens (the grass a creeping bent) came from Wexford. As he surveys the finished product, an understandable sense of achievement is obvious. "I think we've created something a bit special," he says.

He's right. The view itself couldn't be bought. Down below, the waters of Kenmare Bay glisten in the summer sunshine - one of those days!! - and, on the far side, to the south, the Caha mountains reach to the sky. A pleasantly surprising feature is that the lay-out offers the golfer an omnipresent view of the bay and, apart from the opening two holes which are uphill, it is also relatively undemanding, physically.

Off the back stakes, the course measures 6,867 yards with a par of 72. Interestingly, the front nine is a par 37 (to the back nine's 35) but it measures some 225 yards less than the homeward journey.

There is tremendous character in almost every hole, with the onus on good shots (not always with the driver) off the tee. The contoured greens are undulating and imaginative and given that the course aspires to playing host to a professional event - possibly the Irish PGA or a seniors - at some stage, there is plenty of scope for devilish pin positions come that time.

Apart from sand and rock underneath the fairways, there is also 60,000 metres of drains in a further attempt to defy the local elements. Even now, just over a month since the official opening, and less than a year since some of the fairways were seeded, all the signs are that Jones's ploy of using sand is an unqualified success. Built on 150 acres, there is a contrast between the two nines with more trees and greater maturity on the homeward journey. For all that, the front nine is a fine and interesting test, the opening two holes setting the trend with a premium on good, accurate drives and, while the par three offers a mild respite, the back-to-back par fives that follow demand good course management. Especially the fifth, a deceptive hole with a par four length of 470 yards off the back markers.

It generally plays into the prevailing wind - which adds on a club or two - and it is here we meet Ian Morton, the greenkeeper, a man from Lincolnshire who arrived on these shores last January and quickly became accustomed to putting in 70 hour weeks until the course opened for play. The hole is guarded by a pond, one of eight such features on the course, and acts as a deterrent for anyone tempted to reach the green in two, and the more logical step (albeit still a demanding one) is to lay up short and play over the water to a large green that slopes front to back.

Everywhere, the view is quite breathtaking - and few places surpass the panorama from the eighth tee-box where the initial drive travels through sky, mountain and water before hitting the green grass. The front nine - as I've stated - is shorter than the inward run but longer, and adds credence to the view that holes don't have to be unduly long to be good ones. The 10th is another fine hole, but it is followed by a real monster, the 11th, which is a par five measuring 624 yards off the back stakes. The drive must be accurate, over a ravine with maintenance shed to the left and out of bounds. Thankfully, it is virtually all downhill.

There is a lovely natural feel to the back nine, and some 5,000 rhododendrons have been planted to augment the indigenous flora. Indeed, a measure of the use of natural materials is that the marker to assist the blind tee shot at the 16th is a huge boulder unearthed during the course's construction. Jones has many contours on the greens, but none quite match the splendour of the three-tier green on the finishing hole. Anyone who hits their teeshot to the top tier at the 193 yards par three over water, with the pin on either the bottom or middle tiers, will be in for a huge test of character.

In time, there is little doubt that the Ring of Kerry will be included on any visitor's itinerary to the kingdom. My advice is to get there before the mad rush.