Home Course features Roganstown Hotel, Golf & Country Club – From A Family Farm To Irish Parkland Golfing Gem

Roganstown Hotel, Golf & Country Club – From A Family Farm To Irish Parkland Golfing Gem

5 months ago by Bernie McGuire Comments Off

Golf fans around the globe know that Ireland is famed for some of the best links courses on the planet.

Courses such as Royal Portrush, Royal County Down, Castlerock, Portstewart, Rosapenna, Enniscrone, Donegal, Portsalon and Ballyliffin in the north and north-west to the likes of Waterville, Ballybunnion, Dooks and Tralee in the south-west where there right there on the virtual front doorstep of Dublin is the likes of Portmarnock, Royal Dublin, The Island and then my favourite a little to the south, and that is The European Club at Brittas Bay.

However with the next staging of the Ryder Cup on European soil to take place in 2027 at Adare Manor there is equally some sensational parkland gems on the Emerald Isle.

Here I am singling out the likes of the K. Club, Druids Glen, Lough Erne, Killeen Castle, Carton House, Killarney Golf and Fishing Club, to give it it’s full name, and then there’s Luttrellstown Castle, the delightful Woodenbridge and, last but not least, Mt. Juliet on the outskirts of Killarney and where I attended, as member of the media, my first Irish Open in 1993.

Image – GolfByTourMiss

Though there’s a relatively new kid on the Irish golf parkland block and Roganstown Hotel, Golf and Country club has been commanding plenty of attention and gleaning much respect.

Prior to 1998 the Roganstown property was a family farm run by the parents of Ian McGuinness, and whose mother Denise was a pioneer for Irish golf, opening in the early 1990s the Swords Golf Club.

Sadly, she passed away suddenly in early 2018.

However, as Ian McGuinness explained in Irish Golfer Magazine, and that I regularly contribute, it was a family farm that they decided to redevelop.

Ian McGuinness – Image Irish Golfer Magazine

“My mother was big into golf and she was a member of Skerries and then Balbriggan where she was Lady Captain and she started Swords Open golf course as a nine-hole and then converted it to 18 back in the 90s”, said McGuinness.

“They still live in the house and the rest of the farm was a freesia cow and a bit of tillage so my mother was complaining about a draughty old house and my stepfather wanted to retire and none of us were interested in taking over the farm so we came up with the Roganstown model side by side with Swords.

“My mother started it all and we do an annual Denise McLoughlin memorial at the club. She was a pioneer. She started Swords 35 years ago if she started today she would have been held out as a pillar for women in business. She was ahead of her time.”

The family engaged Christy O’Connor Jnr to design the Roganstown course on the rest of the farm and the Georgian Country House homestead was converted to a 52-bedroom hotel, with function rooms, restaurant, bars, and a state-of-the-art leisure centre.

It was in May, 2004 the Roganstown Hotel, Golf and Country Club was officially opened.

Roganstown Hotel, Golf & Country Club – Image Your Golf Travel

“We had the land and we knew about the golf business. It started off quite small then ended up being a 52-bedroom and leisure centre, a proper country club golf course designed by Christy O’Connor Jnr”, said McGuinness.

“Christy came back to play in pro-ams and his designs were like children, they grew up so he was always tweaking. I’m looking at it now 20 years later and it’s so different to what it was, it’s maturing. 

“Christy designs golf courses that anybody can go out and play. The fairways are nice and wide, rough not too heavy but it’s long enough to get the pros out and they can’t beat the golf course out”.

Since it’s opening 20-years ago next year, Roganstown has hosted the Irish PGA Southern Championship in 2007, 2008 and 2009 along with the Irish PGA Championship in 2013 and was the first venue in Ireland to host a EuroPro Tour Event in 2006.

Lets take a tour of the golf course and with great, and very much overdue thanks to Ciaran Flaherty, Golf Sales and Development Manager at Roganstown Hotel & Country Club

It was Ciaran who, back in mid-2019, who so generously arranged for the four of us to tee-up at Roganstown.

The course, playing off the White tees, measures 6,528 yars playing to a par-71

There is four par-5s with the longest being the l8th, measuring 565-yards whilst the shortest hole is par-3 ninth hole that plays to 154-yards. The No. 1 index hole is 414-yard par-4 13th and the No. 18 hole is the par-3 second hole playing to 170-yards

There is also five par-3s at Roganstown.

Five of us on the opening tee at Roganstown Hotel, Golf & Country Club – Image GolfByTourMiss

Bernie admiring the Roganstown Hotel, Golf & Country Club

Ted, the world’s most travelled headcover, meeting the locals at Roganstown Hotel, Golf & Country Club. Of course, Roganstown was a farm before being redeveloped into a golf course.