Tulfarris Golf Club is inside the Tulfarris Hotel and Golf Resort. The resort is located on the shores of Blessington Lakes in County Wicklow, Ireland.
The championship golf course is laid out on a 200-acre estate that also contains a restored 18th century Manor House – built in 1760 on the ruins of the old Tulfarris Castle – and early Christian burial grounds preserved under the mounds of the 10th and 12th fairways.
The golf course was designed originally as a 9-hole course, but then expanded to 18 holes by golf architect Patrick Merrigan in 1993 after a change in ownership. At present, the Tulfarris Golf Club stretches across three peninsulas that reach into the lake landscape. This has led to many fairways and greens being located dangerously close to water hazards. Additionally, strategically-placed sand bunkers make for an exciting and varied game of golf.
The course is configured in classical formation with two par fives and two par threes on each loop of nine holes. Water endangers the approach to the green at a handful of holes on both the front and back nine so these hazards, allied to strategic bunkering and length off the tee demanded at most holes – even the par threes are all in excess of 170 yards off the back tees – will keep most net scores above the par of 72 for the course
The 608-yard, par five, 7th hole is a favourite of many on the outward half, with the tee shot played out over a lake to a fairway that doglegs right to a well-trapped green. On the inward nine, the 200-yard, par three, 16th hole demands a precise tee shot to avoid a lake and some protecting oak trees to make the green.