Golf Art of Ireland

The island of Ireland has some of the largest and most dramatic links land in the world. Its dunes are higher and wilder than most in Scotland and England, and the courses built among them feel less like fields beside the sea and more like paths through a landscape of sand hills. Rain and Atlantic weather keep the grass green much of the year, and the gorse that covers many of the dunes turns them gold in spring.

Linda Hartough's Irish paintings come from two of the best-known courses on the island, one on each coast. Royal County Down, founded in 1889, lies at Newcastle in Northern Ireland, where the Mountains of Mourne come down to Dundrum Bay. Its fairways wind through high dunes, its bunkers are rimmed with shaggy marram and heather, and several tee shots are played blind over ridges. Its 9th hole, played from a high dune toward the town and the peak of Slieve Donard, is one of the most photographed views in golf.

Ballybunion, founded in 1893, is on the west coast in County Kerry, where the River Shannon meets the Atlantic. Its Old Course runs through huge dunes and along the cliffs above the beach, fully exposed to the ocean wind, with small greens set in hollows and on shelves between the dunes. Its reputation spread internationally after Tom Watson began visiting in 1981.

Irish golf has also been shaped by visitors. Many of the country's most celebrated links remained little known outside Ireland for much of the twentieth century and were discovered by traveling golfers in its later decades. The collection includes the 9th at Royal County Down and the 11th at Ballybunion, each in several editions.