Norman calls the shots in Clare

It's an image straight from one of those comic golf calendars. The player stands on the impossibly isolated tee preparing to play his shot to the inaccessible island green rising up from the fathomless depths of the gorge below.

Such may be your thoughts as you stand on the 14th tee of Doonbeg Golf Club. It's a short par three, facing due west into the Atlantic and the prevailing wind, but the narrow green is hidden behind a high dune to the left, between tee and green is gorge, and behind and right of the green is sea and sand. In short: Hit and hold the green or you're dead.

Of course, this challenge will not have come as a complete shock to the system, because you will have already played the ninth, another par three running north along the shore, which offers the golfer who misses the green the option of playing his second from the sand on the left (i.e., the strand) or the sand on the right, a huge and cavernous bunker.

Clearly, Greg Norman has a sadistic streak. Or perhaps he simply has a genius for designing golf holes. For, although it is early days, already it seems that Doonbeg may in time be recognised as one of the finer jewels in his architectural crown.

You will be familiar with the history of the development in southwest Clare. In the mid 1990s, Shannon Development, at the urging of the local community development company, purchased the options on almost 400 acres from four local farming families.

The State body then selected Landmark National to oversee the project, and they in turn brought in Kiawah Development Partners (KDP) in 1999, who have led the development of the course.

In addition to private funding, the project is also supported by £2.4 million in European structural funds.

You'll also know of the conservation issues which attended the development initially, particularly the question of vertigo angustior, the tiny snail whose habitat was potentially under threat from the course.

Fortunately, all these issues have been addressed to everyone's satisfaction, and the course is on schedule to open for general play next spring or early summer.

Indeed, on his way to the British Open last month, Norman and his sons played what might be considered the first full round on the course. And there may be some limited, private play next month.

Unlike some designers, Norman is a frequent visitor to what site manager Peter Houlihan describes as, "very much Greg's baby".

"Somebody was telling me the other day that Greg was at a press conference in Australia for one of his projects there and all he could talk about was Doonbeg," Houlihan says. "He's refining and refining as we go along.

"I'm the longest on the site here, nearly two years, and I'm deeply impressed by what Kiawah are trying to do. Rather than translate an American thing here, they have really sort of said, 'you're the experts in relation to Ireland, tell us what's needed', and that has paid dividends left right and centre."

Ed Tovey of KDP, a Canadian who has supped from the Fountain of Youth, and is vice-president of Doonbeg GC Ltd, gave an overview of the course and its development.

"It's nine holes out and nine holes back. The property we bought is 380 acres, and we lost about 50 to 60 acres to the vertigo angustior snail and the grey dunes which were marked for protection.

"We have provided access for the locals with a new road which will take them up behind the hotel site. And in the middle of the property there's an access for surfers to the beach.

"The original yardage was 6,850 yards, but we just redid it. So it's not overly long, and you can actually move it back down to about 6,000 yards. And on most holes we've got four, five - on one hole we've got six - tees, so there's lots of variety in terms of the distances. And it could be lengthened if we had to."

Although such thinking is well down the road, the hope is that the course will stage a championship.

"Greg has said in the past that this could definitely host a major championship, Tovey says.

"Then it gets to be a question of the infrastructure and the accommodation and the roads and the highways."

One of the most unusual features of the course is that its par of 72 is made up by including five par-fives and five par-threes.

"The original design called for the first hole to be a par four, and the second a par three to what is now the first green," Tovey explains.

"After a lot of debate that plan was scrubbed and we went to a long, 575-yard par-five opening hole - an easy opener, you get plenty of whacks at it.

"On the first four holes you've got the feeling that you've got a chance to make birdie on each one of them, because you're going downwind.

"So when we did one as a par five, then we had to find another par three, and that's when Greg found that 14th. It's 111 yards, dead into the wind. We've hit sandwedge to five-iron there."

Another appealing aspect of the design is that so much of it was determined by the shape of the land. The 14th, Tovey explains, "is one place where we actually did cut off the top of the dune.

There's been very, very little earth movement here. In fact, eight of the golf holes existed when we took the cattle off the property and started to cut grass.

"The grass you see on the fairways today is exactly the grass that was there. It's a seaside fescue grass.

"There's obviously some weeds and stuff mixed in with it now, but we haven't done any killing of weeds, we haven't done any fertilising, haven't done any coring. So what you see is the natural state.

"You'll also notice the greens," he says, with a disconcerting smile. "There are some wicked undulations, almost like the Himalayas at St Andrews, their little pitch and putt place. There's some wicked slopes.

"But that is exactly as the land was. We took off the grass that was on there, resanded, and then we seeded the greens.

"Most of the greens were seeded between July and August last year. The first, the 18th and the fifth were seeded in September and the seventh this February."

Another outstanding - in more ways than one - feature of the course is the bunkering, as you can see above.

"The guys built 47 revetted bunkers," Tovey says, "and then there are others that were naturally there and they shaped them a little bit. That was the last thing they did, was build the bunkers. They laid out the golf course first.

"The first green sites Greg found were 15 and the first, and then he kind of built the golf course around that."

One feature of the layout which some golfers may find a little disconcerting is that you are required to play a number of shots across a hole adjacent to the one you are on. Apparently this is Norman's idea.

"Greg has a great belief in this flyover concept from his tees, the championship tees," Tovey says. "He's got one at two, where you fly over the corner of the 17th green, one at six, flying over the 14th and 13th, and 15 flies across five.

"Greg's experience is that it's different from America, that it adds to the experience. And it only happens from the championship tees."

Of course, like most modern course developments, the ultimate aim is to cater for the top range of the market, but the people behind Doonbeg are trying their best to instil the sense of community that you can find at the well-established courses, such as Lahinch, and which is noticeably absent from venues such as the Old Head.

"The local membership here," Tovey says, "we've committed to 150 players, and that's probably going to extend 10 kilometres out from Doonbeg.

"Those selections will be recommended by a committee within the Doonbeg Development Group. The fee is going to be comparable to the Ballybunions and Lahinchs, it's probably going to be between £750 and £1,500 to join, and then £300 to £400 annual subscription.

"It goes from there to $50,000, and that membership drive is just beginning, and it's going to be focused first of all on the members of the Kiawah club.

"Fifty-thousand is comparable to the Old Head, the big difference with ours is that it is fully refundable - if you buy it today and you want out next week, next month, next year, five years, you get your £50,000 back."

To date, about £7 million has been spent on the project. Along with the course, the developers are planning what they describe as a village, which will include the clubhouse, a hotel, several private homes and, naturally, a pub.

"Sort of an Irish village concept," Tovey says. "No building will be greater than 38 feet. Every building will be slightly different, but appropriate for the setting. The main building will be the Manor Lodge, and it'll probably consist of between 25 and 50 rooms.

"The buildings will kind of flow through the valley, and they'll almost disappear behind dunes. It isn't like a typical American course development, where you see every house and you've got balls in your back garden."

It will be several years before we'll know if Doonbeg is the classic links challenge Norman and his associates hope to achieve.

But it looks like they are right on target.