Ryder Cup venue 'relentlessly mundane'

The exclusive K Club is hosting the 2006 Ryder Cup

The venue for this year's Ryder Cup "pales in comparison" to four Northern Ireland golf courses, according to a leading US sports writer.

Bruce Selcraig said the K Club in County Kildare was "a thoroughly uninspiring, comically overpriced, American resort course".

The club's original Palmer course will host the 36th Ryder Cup in September.

It is contested by the best European and US golfers every two years and is watched by hundreds of millions of people worldwide.

For this reason, Mr Selcraig - a former investigative reporter for Sports Illustrated - said he was aghast that Ireland's window to the golfing world was not filled with one of its more superior courses.

In a country whose courses are famous for legendary sand dunes, demonic bunkers, historic quirkiness and sight lines that have you looking for church steeples and ancient Celtic ruins, the K Club offers 18 holes of mum's backyard Bruce Selcraig

"The K Club Palmer Course is a relentlessly mundane track that has no business representing Irish golf," he said in an article in The Irish Times.

"Dear Ireland... you now possess the finest collection of golf courses in the world... In other words, you have Rembrandt, Cezanne, Gauguin and Michelangelo hanging in your kitchen, and in September you're inviting 800 million TV viewers to watch your Disney World home movies."

The K Club, which recently opened a second course - the "inland links" Smurfit - is owned by multi-millionaire Michael Smurfit.

But this year's Ryder Cup will be contested on the Arnold Palmer designed original course.

Mr Selcraig said "exhilarating, rolling parkland courses" such as Belvoir Park Golf Club in Belfast, Malone Golf Club in the city, and links courses such as Royal County Down in Newcastle and Royal Portrush, were much better golf courses.

"In a country whose courses are famous for legendary sand dunes, demonic bunkers, historic quirkiness and sight lines that have you looking for church steeples and ancient Celtic ruins, the K Club offers 18 holes of mum's backyard," he said.

On the K Club's official website, it said the Palmer Course was "quite simply one of Europe's most spectacular courses".

"You may have been forewarned that Ireland's first Ryder Cup Venue is no ordinary golf course, and that it is widely acknowledged as the country's most challenging inland layout, but still you will be unprepared for the ensuing drama," it said.