County Kerry in Southwest Ireland, is known by the locals as ‘the Kingdom.’ If you ever happen to go there you’ll soon see why.
Built by a garrison of British Army soldiers sent to West Kerry to ‘keep the peace’ in the 1880s, and billeted at nearby Caragh, a 9-holes golf course was laid out to, not only keep the soldiers busy but to teach them engineering works and provide a form of sporting entertainment on completion. Because this activity took place in 1886, Dooks & Caragh Golf Club became by ‘several years’ the oldest golf club in the province of Munster, let alone the Kingdom of County Kerry. Dooks is gaelic for sandbank, which describes the terrain perfectly.
In the following years, the Great Southern Railway promoted its hotel at Caragh Lake with one of the star attractions being the ‘sporty challenges of the game of golf at Dooks, overlooking magnificent Rossbeigh.’ The golf club quickly became a reflection of the genteel lifestyle of the British ascendancy with tea parties on the lawn beside the clubhouse.
Before the course was renovated by Martin Hawtree in the early 2000s, the course featured a short hole (7th) with a unique basin green that as regularly as clockwork gave up aces.
In 1970, the club expanded to 18-holes and has hardly looked back since. A decade later, the club was faced with a mini-crisis when accused by a local environmentalist group of threatening, if not destroying, the natural habitat of a rare species of toad, named the Natterjack.
The Members rose to the challenge, building fortified breeding areas for the toads in which they have increased and multiplied ever since and then, carried off a huge public relations coup by adopting the Natterjack as the club logo – and an amusing and memorable one it is.
For more information on Dooks Golf Links or to book a tee time, visit www.dooks.com.
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