Carne Golf Links

Carne Golf Links — Eddie Hackett’s last great dunes extended into the Wild Atlantic Dunes

The course occupies an immense dune property on the Mullet Peninsula in County Mayo. The Atlantic, the Inishkea Islands, and the Connemara mountains form a very open horizon, while the fairways often disappear between towering dunes.

Carne was developed starting in the late 1980s by the community of Belmullet to create a sustainable tourism driver for the region. Eddie Hackett designed the original eighteen holes, which opened in two phases in 1992 and 1993. Nine additional holes, inspired by his sketches and designed by Ally McIntosh and Jim Engh, opened in 2013. Since 2020, the Wild Atlantic Dunes combines these new holes with the most spectacular part of the Hackett course.

Hackett intervened with restraint, utilizing natural valleys, few artificial bunkers, and greens placed within existing forms. The Wild Atlantic Dunes accentuates this philosophy with more pronounced elevation changes and lines of play through the largest dunes.

The terrain is vast, physically demanding, and at times disorienting. Holes transition from sheltered valleys to completely exposed ridges. Greens generally remain accessible, but poor recovery areas quickly become very challenging.

Carne remains a remote community club whose straightforward local welcome contrasts with its growing international reputation.

The Round selects it because Carne represents one of the most natural expressions of modern Irish links, born from a community project as much as from an architect.

Eighteen original holes by Eddie Hackett opened in 1992-1993; nine additional holes opened in 2013; Wild Atlantic Dunes routing launched in 2020.