Deric Henderson - The Press Association of Ireland
My belief that its probably one of the finest parkland courses in Ireland is a view shared by many. Its a fantastic test, particularly off the white markers. It should then get the sort of all-Ireland print exposure - and rating - it deserves.
Northern Ireland offers many stunning courses off the beaten path.
A truly great Irish course!
Galgorm Castle is so close to Belfast International Airport that diehards can be on the first tee less than an hour after touching down. Set in the grounds of Galgorm Castle, a Jacobean fort built in 1618, near the town of Ballymena, the course opened in 1997. It is a well-manicured park land layout, stretching to 6736 yards, long enough for low handicappers but eminently forgiving for those of us who still consider breaking 90 akin to the 4 minute mile.
The short holes can either build your confidence or shatter it, like the fourth, a sneaky 523 yarder that demands absolute accuracy on every shot. Yet the back-to-back par 5s at the turn offer even average duffers a birdie opportunity.
Unlike many courses in Ireland, Galgorm Castle has a driving range. This is no small matter since it is seldom fun tackling Irish courses without loosening up. After the round, the Pavilion restaurant is about the perfect place for a post-mortem on your score card.
First Golf Club in Ireland to install GPS Satellite Navigation System
The 6,736-yard course at Galgorm Castle Golf Club opened just six years ago and is already rated as one of the country's finest parkland courses.
The Club at Ballymena, Co Antrim has become the first in the country to fit out a fleet of buggies with a satellite-guided navigation system which gives yardage read-outs.
Deric Henderson,
Press Association
The News Letter
"A year ago I ventured to Galgorm Castle Golf Club fully expecting to encounter a course still in the process of reaching its full potential after just two years in existence. But even then it was undoubtedly beyond the standards set by many park land courses in Northern Ireland.
This year, the results are more impressive than ever with improved greens, fairways and a £250,000 drainage system which makes Galgorm Castle one of the truly all weather courses..........
The Daily Mirror by Paul Martin
"The course at Galgorm Castle is an example to all. There are short and smooth fairways and perfect greens. I always wondered what it would be like to play the high standards of a European tour course-now I know.
The scenery is top class and there can't be many places where you can be agreeably distracted by a fisherman landing a decent trout or a majestic swan landing in the waters, just as you are teeing off."
The Irish Times by Dermot Gilleece
"Here is a classic parkland terrain on which the key features of soil, water and mature trees are drawn together in a golfing challenge that is at once delightful and daunting. Indeed it would be difficult to imagine a more ideal self-contained site bordered as it is by the River Main and the River Braid which form two sides of a triangle until they meet at the back of the 13th green"
Belfast Telegraph by Jack Magowan
"One of golf's brightest gems and a pearl in Ireland's necklace of privately owned courses"
"A tight-fisted aristocrat by the name of Faithful Fortescue paid his stonemasons a penny a day to build Galgorm Castle nearly 400 years ago.
If only the walls of this historic old mansion could talk, they would tell us more about the Rev Alex Colville - who, legend has it, sold his soul to the devil for gold and knowledge - right down to the present-day owner-occupier, Christopher Brooke, grandson of Northern Ireland's former Prime Minister, the late Lord Brookeborough.
Colville's faded portrait hangs in the hall of the Castle, and "must never be moved, or bad luck will follow".
Christopher, however, is still moving heaven and earth to fulfil his 10 year dream of creating one of the finest golf courses in the country.
To this end, another 12 mile ribbon of drains criss-cross those installed prior to the midsummer launch of 1997 and if Galgorm's bunkers now look paler than usual, it's because marble-coloured sand has been imported as a distinguishing feature.
"We keep spending a lot of time and money on course improvements", says Brooke, a 40 plus golfing visionary. "What we need most is some good spring weather. Then the course will really be packed with new surprises."
Christopher's business interests were in Dubai before he inherited this 400 acre Ballymena estate from his grandmother. That was ten years ago, and he hasn't looked back.
First, a string of custom-made job units in a courtyard that has been derelict. Then an 18-hole golf course of championship calibre, complemented by a 24-bay floodlit driving range, plus clubhouse and restaurant of star rating. Total cost: £3.5 million.
The biggest threat to privately owned courses is that most are cruelly overplayed and suffer from 5 o'clock shadow.
Not Galgorm. Here, membership has been restricted to 400 so that visiting golfers, always so essential to a thriving economy, can be accommodated as comfortably as those who make up the roll-call. Ian Rosborough is club captain, and Mary Kearney ladies' captain."
