K CLUB (Smurfit Course)
Founded: 2002
Designer: Arnold Palmer
Type: Parkland
More Information: www.kclub.ie
The Smurfit Course at The K Club has already been described as probably the greatest inland Golf Course to be developed in Ireland and has already hosted a Smurfit European Open.
The best way to describe the Smurfit Course at The K Club is that of an inland links. However, its true attributes do not stop there. The course has many dramatic landscapes with dune-type mounding throughout. Some fourteen acres of water have been worked into the design especially through the final phase of holes 13 to 18. A watery grave awaits many a golfer on the home stretch.
In essence the Smurfit Course is entirely different from the Palmer Course located just across the River Liffey. From feedback to date, golfers state that it is almost impossible to make a comparison, so great is the difference in experience.
The most significant golf hole on the Smurfit Course is the Par 5, 7th measuring some 606 yards. This hole will probably be regarded as the most dramatic in Europe. It has a series of water cascades and water features which are just some factors of this development. In its construction, the Fairway was dropped some sixty feet below its original height.