Skellig Bay Golf Club

The dream for the new Golf Course at Waterville goes back over the years to a friendship that was established during the construction of the Old Head Golf Links in Kinsale. It was here that Ron Kirby met and worked together as designer and contractor to create one of Golf's great experiences.

The late Joe Carr had met Ron while Kirby was working on the Jack Nicklaus course at Mount Juliet and that friendship lead to Joe asking Ron to help with the design at Old Head.

Haulie then asked Ron to look at the property in Waterville while they were both involved with the Kinsale project with the idea that a second course would be a great addition to the golf scene in Waterville. Ron made his first visit to the Skelligs Bay Site in 1998 and began at once to dream and design the now completed course due to open in Spring '06.

Ron has used the river as a dominant feature for the opening holes and then moved to the headlands for the final holes. The site has over 8,000 metres of ancient walls - much of them in poor repair. As the design progressed some of the walls were removed but over 2,000 metres were added to enhance the holes. The course at the Skellig Bay is Ron's only total design project here in Ireland - though he has Dromoland Castle, Greystones and Stackstowm as other design credits for course upgrades and improvements.