PICTURE a club where the majority of the members play only two or three weeks a year, where the list of members' names runs from Aeschlimann to Zimmermann, from Paulus to Sugimura and where the official language is Irish!
This remarkable club, and place, is Ceann Sibeal in the heart of the Kerry Gaeltacht, about to miles from Dingle and 1 1/2 miles from Ballyferriter. An Irish club, in a thoroughly Irish setting, but with a unique international flavour.
There's nothing new, of course, in Kerry clubs reaping substantial dividends from tourism. What is different in Ceann Sibeal's case is that the tourists are members, not green fees (as in Ballybunion, Killarney etc).
Green fees are important but, at £135,000 last year, a far cry from the seven-figure sums brought in elsewhere. What sets Ceann Sibeal apart is the fact that the majority of its 500 members do not live locally.
"We would have a hard core of about 150 to 200 living in the local area and most of them would be Irish speakers, says honorary secretary Tomas O Se. "The rest would be away members."
Of these away members some are from Dublin, Cork and Limerick but, as even a cursory glance at the membership list would tell you, even more are from overseas.
As many as 90 are from Germany and Holland, according to clubhouse manager Steve Fahy, while others come from France and Japan. They come over each year, usually in summer, and play for a fortnight to a month. All are full members paying the standard subscription of £170 (£470 in the first year).
The club is delighted to have them and makes no bones about the fact that they could not survive without the tourist revenue. The only downside - though not for would-be Irish green fees - is that the course tends to be quiet in the off-season.
Despite its cosmopolitan membership, Ceann Sibeal is also very much an Irish club and the language is to the forefront of that. "It's important to us," says O Se. "A lot of our business would be done through Irish and it's actually set out in our constitution that we use Irish as much as possible. We find, too, that a lot of our visitors like it."
With that in mind, the popular Golf As Gaeilge weekend, held at the club each September, has become something of a fixture. Now in its 14th year, this series of open competitions is sponsored by Toyota, whose chief executive Tim Mahony, owns a house within view of the clubhouse.
But do not be intimidated into thinking that a knowledge of Irish is essential for playing at Ceann Sibeal. The club welcomes all-comers.
Indeed, the club prides itself on its friendly atmosphere. "We make it a point, on our Captain's Night, that everyone, no matter how good or bad, takes a turn at singing," says O Se.
The revenue from increased membership and green fees has been heavily invested in development. About £1 million has been spent in the last 10 years on a clubhouse, completed in 1992 (from which all 18 flags on the course can be seen), and the completion of the back nine designed by Christy O'Connor Jnr.
Work continues on the course with new mounding being added on the sixth and new blinkers on the seventh, although O Se was concerned, during The Irish Times's visit, with the effect on the greens of the Scarabeen (a dry, hard wind that blows from March 5th to April 15th).
Certainly wind is an ever present feature on this exposed course, set in the rugged beauty of what used to be one of the most remote parts of the country. Increased tourism means it is no longer an undiscovered gem, but you will still have to negotiate some fairly basic roads to get there.
Given that the course nestles on the steep slopes of Sybil Head itself, there is relief when you tee off down the hill at the par four first, but the relief soon turns to trepidation when you discover that anything but a ripper of a drive will leave you with an uncomfortably long carry over a stream for your second. This sets the tone for an enjoyably testing but not intimidatingly difficult, round in which the stream comes into play on no fewer than 10 holes.
The par four third, with acres of space off the tee, compensates with a green perched on a sidehill plateau. Anything landing short or slightly left is not going to finish on the green. Back across the stream at the par four fourth, the most westerly hole in Europe, the partially blind second shot is to a green snug amidst the dunes.
At the long sixth, marshland teeming with wildlife follows you all the way along the right and when you get to the 7th, 8th and 9th, it's time to forget about the golf and just drink in the views. At the seventh you look out across the beach to the Blasket Islands, then at the eighth you turn the opposite way and use the dramatic cliffs of the Three Sisters for your line. A more spectacular setting is scarcely imaginable.
The ninth, Ifreann, lives up to its name (hell) a monstrous 427 yards straight up the hill towards Sybil Head. A five here is quite acceptable and that's assuming you clear the stream with your drive. Anything pushed or slightly mis-hit is in trouble.
On the back nine the holes vary between the relatively straight-forward 12th and 14th to the difficult 10th, 16th and 18th. The 197-yard par three 10th requires a long iron or fairway wood to a green well protected by mounds and bunkers and the par four 16th boasts a green of almost Augusta-like slopes.
The only slight irritation is at the 17th where the green is virtually impossible to hold with the blind second shot. And so to the 504-yard 18th where the generosity of the first is well and truly forgotten. Played parallel to the ninth, it's back up the hill again and the reward for a good drive and fairway wood is a mere seven or eight-iron third to a very three-puttable green.
In general, though, at Ceann Sibeal the rewards are many. Some years ago, as part of their promotion of Golf As Gaeilge. Toyota produced a light-hearted list of tearmai golf. The translation offered for visitor was la brea. If you are a visitor to Ceann Sibeal that stands as a fairly good description of what you'll find there.
