Inland links for the serious golfer!

Charlie Mulqueen visits the new Colin Montgomerie creation at Carton House, near Maynooth.

COLIN MONTGOMERIE looked over his handiwork at Carton House and was so thrilled with the vista that he was moved to comment: "You expect to see the sea just over the wall of the estate but of course it is not there."

Montgomerie designed the second course at Carton (located about two kilometres outside of Maynooth, Co Kildare, for the Mallaghan family using some 350 of the 1,100 acres on this magnificent estate.

Space, as you can well imagine, is limitless. He decided he wanted it to look as close to a links as possible. It's not an easy task when the site is pure farmland and there are those who understandably argue that it was a mission impossible. It has been tried before that was the thought in Peter McEvoy's head when he designed the original course at Fota Island. That plan has long been abandoned and with very favourable results but an even more determined effort was made at Carton.

It isn't all that far off the genuine article. It has a linksy look, an effect created largely by the use of deep, cavernous bunkers and the knee length fescue grasses that line every hole but at a reasonable distance from the fairways and first cuts of rough. All of this looks quite spectacular although to be brutally honest, our match spent quite a deal of time in the hay and without very favourable results! Finding your golf ball in there is quite simply a case of pure chance.

Then you have the bunkers, all 139 of them. although in some instances 'crater' or 'pit' might be a more appropriate term.

You disappear from sight once you go in there and no doubt some will maintain they are too severe, especially for the humble club player. However, you know where they are for everything is laid out in front of you and nothing is hidden. Indeed they offer a certain degree of definition, something badly needed on a course that hardly contains a single tree.

Montgomerie also used his imagination where the contouring on and around the greens is concerned and the many run-offs into beautifully shaped swales. If all this suggests that Monty's course is course, then that is certainly the case. It plays to 7,301 yards off the back tees and significantly there is scope to add appreciably greater length should such be desirable some time in the future in the event of technology continuing on the same path as at present.

The sensible ones, however, will stick to the medal (6, 821 yards) or even the society tees (6, 365) and will enjoyable a wonderful day's golf.

Nevertheless, the awesome challenge presented by Monty's course and so many others coming on stream at this very time (such as Seve's at the Heritage in Co Laois and Arnold Palmer's second creation at The K-Club) raises the very relevant question as to whether they are being designed with the club golfer in mind at all. Certainly, off the back tees they are purely for top-class professionals but you wonder, of course, how often they will have the opportunity to tackle such courses. They can't all host Irish Opens, European Opens, World Championships, Seve Trophies and the like.

The Monty course opens for play on Thursday and already it is remarkably mature. There was a lot of rain in the area early last week but the fairways were absolutely bone dry by the week-end. There won't be a drainage problem here.

"This is a unique project and I am privileged to be associated with it", said Montgomerie.

"You can't call it a links but it will play like a links and has many of the characteristics of a links. In the design, I attempted to go back to a more traditional course. My philosophy was 'let's go back, but let's make it different', and that is what we have achieved here."

The only water to be seen is the River Rye which comes into play at the 1st and to a lesser extent at the 18th. Montgomerie's favourites are the par four 13th, a short par four of 338 yards from the back, and the 17th, a very picturesque par three with the Rye as a backdrop.

My preference was for the 15th, a cracking par five that can be played from anything between 554 and 500 yards with a nest of bunkers in the landing area but plenty of fairway to the left. Avoid the sand and you are faced with a daunting wooden club second to a large plateau green.

This one looks particularly attractive but then the course has many delightfully aesthetic qualities. The panorama is quite magnificent in parts. The Montgomerie course is the second to come on stream at this magnificent estate not much more than a half hour from Dublin. The Mark O'Meara design was opened around this time last year and boasts many adherents. The 13th, 14th and 15th are three of the most beautiful golf holes imaginable, all guarded by the River Rye with the 14th capturing the beautiful Shell Cottage as a background.

The entire complex is quite superb and well worth a visit. At the heart of the land lies Carton House, a most imposing building of grey limestone delicately edged by a creamy tint, which was built in 1739. Queen Victoria, we are told, once slept in the Chinese Room.

The official opening of the Montgomerie course is set for the end of August. Visitors can avail of a special opening of "four rounds for the price of three" in July and August. Green fee prices include a sunset rate of 55 per person after 5 p.m. Monday to Friday, 75 before 9 am (Mon to Fri) and 110 for the rest of the week. Scotsman David Fleming is the golf director and Vari McGreevy is director of sales and marketing.

The next stage of the development at Carton House includes the renovation of the stables area of the mansion house into a purpose built clubhouse beginning this month and due for completion next June, the development of the housing sites and the construction of the Golfing Union of Ireland head office.