Plotting a course way ahead of the game

THE value of that?” mused Old Head director of golf Jim O’Brien, as he admired the magazine cover.

“Unquantifiable.”

Making the cover of the US-based Links magazine is an important watershed in its own right, but being ranked the world’s most spectacular links course transforms it onto an altogether different plateau.

“It’s the equivalent of a million dollars worth of advertising to a target market,” O’Brien said yesterday.

Given that the Old Head was ranked higher than such luminaries as Cypress Point and Pebble Beach, it’s hard to disagree.

In its two-page citation, Links describes the Old Head thus: “Is it a true links? Is it a great test of golf. No matter the question, the answer is the same: find a way to get to this cliff-top layout unabashedly set on a headland jutting into the Irish Sea.”

Fifteen thousand golfers found their way to the Old Head in 2010, making it a truly significant season for a facility whose pioneering owners have had to overcome obstacles as diverse as erosion and a legal challenge that went all the way to the Supreme Court before they realised their dream.

O’Brien beams with pride as here calls the difficult early days for Old Head, compounded in recent seasons by a steep economic downturn.

“We had 15,000 visitors last year and we’ll have 18,000 in 2011 — those bookings are confirmed, with 10,000 visiting from overseas. We’d like to think that such numbers will contribute significantly to the local economy around Kinsale.”

Other golf resorts around the country may view such stats with part envy, part jaundiced eye, but the Old Head director of golf believes the explanation is simple: “Golf at the Old Head is a very special product, and to be described as the most spectacular course in the world endorses that view. The fact that Cypress Point is No 2 puts it in perspective. From arrival, through caddies and food, and onto accommodation at our 15 suites, we want to present a special golf experience — including thedrama of the course itself.”

Part of the secret is the constant upgrading of the course and facilities by the O’Connor brothers, who own this spectacular headland facility. Once more last winter, they’ve invested heavily in improving the infinity view aspect of the course, particularly the fourth hole.

“We have several nurseries here, and we have developed a particular strain of grass that can withstand the salt battering from the sea. That has meant we can remove the mounding which was initially put up to protect the course — a winter wave once literally climbed the rockface and wiped away the exposed green at No 4,” explained Jim O’Brien.

Owner John O’Connor has also just returned from further exploration of the Chinese market, where he signed up a reciprocal arrangement between the Old Head and Mission Hills. While there he also secured primetime television coverage of the Old Head, another marketing coup.

In overcoming obstacles, one of the more persistent in this country has been perception — the suggestion that the domestic market did not really matter to the Old Head.

A four-figure charge for a fourball in the wild west days of the Celtic Tiger did little to assuage such concerns. O’Brien accepts it is an issue Old Head had to overcome through the dint of word of mouth.

He is happier now that the client base is better balanced than it has been at any point since the course opened.

To that end, he pointed to a special early season promotion the Old Head is now offering which has already generated considerable traffic — a day’s golf plus overnight in the sumptuous suites and breakfast for €175 per person.

Only applicable, however from April 14, when the course reopens, to May 14.