Tralee
- Gunnar Kobin
- Apr 25
- 7 min read
The famous Arnold Palmer quote about Tralee, the one every review uses, is that he may have designed the front nine but God designed the back nine. It's a great line and Palmer was good at great lines, but I think it does the front nine a disservice. The back nine at Tralee is genuinely spectacular and deserves the praise it gets. The front nine is also very good and people don't talk about it enough because they've been told for forty years that it's the lesser half. After playing both nines on the same windy afternoon I came away thinking the gap between them is smaller than the legend suggests. The back is more dramatic. The front is more strategic. Both are world-class.
This was the same Irish golf trip that took us to Doonbeg, Waterville, Ballybunion, and then south to Old Head and Cork. Tralee was the day after Ballybunion, which meant we'd just played one of the world's most celebrated links courses and were now driving 45 minutes north to play another world-ranked course. That's the kind of golf trip where you have to be careful not to get jaded. By round four or five your standards have crept up and your willingness to be impressed has crept down. I was worried about this on the drive to Tralee. Then we got there and it didn't matter.
The course sits on a peninsula called West Barrow, north of Tralee town in County Kerry. The Atlantic surrounds the property on three sides. Palmer designed it in the early 1980s with his partner Ed Seay doing most of the on-the-ground routing work. It opened in 1984. This was Palmer's first European course design. He apparently said when he saw the site that he had never come across a piece of land so ideally suited for the building of a golf course. You read these architect quotes after the fact and assume they're marketing-driven. Then you walk the property and you can see what he meant.
We had a cloudy day with serious wind off the Atlantic. Not 16-metres-per-second Trump-Aberdeen wind but a steady 30-mile-an-hour blow with gusts that would knock your hat off and re-route a wedge shot in flight. Standard Atlantic links weather. The kind of conditions Tralee was built for.
OK, the round.
The 1st is a downhill par 4 with a generous fairway, a friendly opener that doesn't ask much of you. You make a four or a five, walk to the 2nd, and that's where things start.
The 2nd is a 565-yard par 5 that wraps along the cliff edge to the right. Ed Seay's routing puts you on the cliff line for your second shot and keeps you there for your third. The hole bends slowly with the coastline. You're never not aware of the drop on the right. I played it conservatively, hit three shots that all stayed left, and made a comfortable bogey. A more aggressive play would have given me a birdie chance but might also have given me a triple. Tralee asks you to choose between safe scoring and heroic scoring on almost every hole, which is part of why I think the front nine is underrated.
The 3rd is the front nine signature hole. Par 3 of about 200 yards over the sea to a green carved into the cliff. The wind makes club selection almost impossible to predict. We had it slightly off the right, which meant a knockdown shot into the green that needed to start out over the ocean and come back. I hit a 5-iron that started too far right and watched it sail off the cliff into the Atlantic. Reloaded. Hit a 6-iron with more conviction and found the front of the green. Two-putted for a four, which is what you get when you put a ball in the ocean.
The 4th, 5th, and 6th are the holes that get dismissed as the "prosaic part of the property" by some reviewers. They're not prosaic. They're three solid par 4s that ask you for accurate driving and good iron play. The 6th in particular is a proper hole, dogleg right with a tightening fairway and a green that rejects anything not flown all the way on. I made bogey on each of them and walked off the 6th green not unhappy.
The 8th is the front nine's other star. Bunkerless par 4 along the shoreline with a big dune narrowing the fairway 150 yards out. The decision is whether to lay up short of the dune or try to bomb past it for a wedge approach. I laid up. Hit a 6-iron in. Made par. The hole is genuinely beautiful and a strong rebuttal to the idea that the front nine is just filler.
The 9th finishes the front. Par 5, double dogleg, back to the clubhouse. Reachable in two with a good drive. I wasn't reachable. Made a fine bogey. Walked into the clubhouse for a quick stop because the restaurant on the second floor has views back over the course that are worth fifteen minutes of your time.
Then the back nine.
The 10th is the toughest hole on the course. 480 yards, par 4, into the prevailing wind. I made double after losing my drive in the rough. I'm not going to spend a paragraph on it because I'd rather forget the hole. Moving on.
The 11th is a 590-yard par 5 that twists up a massive hill. Heartbreaker hole. The kind where you can play three shots well and still walk off with bogey because the green sits at the top of an elevation change you've been working uphill for the entire hole. I made bogey. Bogey was fine.
The 12th is, in my opinion, the best non-coastal hole on the course. Long par 4 with the green high above you and your second shot into a target you can barely see. Some reviewers have it as their favourite hole on the property. I can see why. The strategic decision off the tee is real and the approach is properly demanding.
The 13th is short. 150 yards, par 3, all carry across a ravine. Don't come up short. Don't go long. The green is small and the surrounds reject everything. Classic. I hit the green. Two-putted for par. Felt like a small victory.
Then we get to the back nine's centerpiece, holes 14 through 17, which is where Tralee earns its reputation as one of the great closing stretches in golf.
The 14th is a birdie chance if you're playing well. I wasn't playing well. Made bogey.
The 15th is a 305-yard drivable par 4 that runs along an ocean inlet on the right. The wind was pushing right that day so the smart play was a 3-wood down the left. I hit driver at the green because I was tired of making bogeys and wanted to make something happen. The drive came down on the green, took a slight bounce, and finished six feet from the pin. Two-putt birdie. Best moment of the round.
The 16th is called Shipwreck and it's the one Palmer apparently said was designed by God. 197 yards, par 3, downhill, with the Atlantic on the right and dunes framing the green. The hole is named after a Spanish Armada vessel that ran aground on the rocks here, which is the kind of historical detail that adds weight to a tee shot. I hit a knockdown 6-iron that found the front of the green. Two-putted for par. Walked off the green and just stood for a moment looking back at the tee, which is what people do on holes like this.
The 17th is another short par 4 with a tough drive and a precise approach. The green slopes hard back to the fairway, so anything short feeds away. I came up short and watched my approach roll back twenty yards. Made bogey.
The 18th is an uphill par 5 finishing back at the clubhouse. Standard finishing hole. The drama is concentrated in the previous seven holes and 18 just gets you home.
So the back nine. Yes, it lives up to the hype. The 11th through the 17th is the best stretch of golf I'd played to that point in the trip, and we'd already played Waterville and Ballybunion. The land does most of the work but Palmer and Seay routed it with real intelligence. The hole sequencing keeps you off-balance. You go from a heartbreaker uphill par 5 to a tactical par 4 to a precision par 3 to a strategic par 4 to a drivable par 4 to a downhill par 3 over the ocean to another short par 4. Every hole is different. Every hole asks you a different question. By the time you get to the 18th tee you've been on a journey.
The clubhouse experience is excellent. Second floor restaurant has windows looking back over the course. We had lunch after the round and watched a few groups come in. The food is genuinely good, not just clubhouse-good. The locker room has proper showers, which matters more than people admit when you've just played 18 holes in 30-mile-an-hour wind. The staff are warm in the easy way that Irish golf clubs do better than anyone.
Cost is around €185 in peak season, which is significantly less than Old Head's €395. This is the value comparison nobody is going to write because Tralee and Old Head occupy slightly different categories in people's minds. Old Head is the destination experience. Tralee is the proper round. But if you're choosing between them and your budget is a factor, Tralee gives you 80% of the spectacle for less than half the price. I'm not going to tell anyone to skip Old Head. But I will tell anyone planning an Irish trip that Tralee is the better value.
Where does it sit in my Irish rankings? Top 5 of what I've played. Behind Royal County Down. Probably alongside Ballybunion. Slightly ahead of Waterville in my personal preferences though I know that's a controversial opinion. I'd put it level with Old Head as a complete experience, which means Old Head wins on setting and Tralee wins on value. Both are essential.
I would play Tralee again tomorrow if someone offered me a round. Same wind. Same cloudy sky. Same lunch on the second floor afterward looking back at the course. That's a high recommendation.
A small note on the Palmer quote. After playing the course I think the line about God designing the back nine is partially modesty and partially great marketing from Arnie. The back nine is more dramatic, no question. But the front nine has design choices that required serious craft from Palmer and Seay. The 8th is not a hole God put there. The routing decisions on the 2nd are not God's work. Arnie was being generous to himself by being humble. The whole course is his and Seay's, and they deserve the credit for what they built on this land. God provided the cliffs. The architects made it work as golf.
