Carlow Golf Club

Carlow Golf Club sits at Deerpark on the Dublin Road, just outside the town of Carlow in County Carlow, in the south-east of Ireland. The club traces its origins to 1899, when it was founded as the Leinster Golf Club with a nine-hole course; it took its present name in 1901. In 1922 the club moved to a portion of the Bruen family estate, where a wooded, free-draining stretch of parkland became the home of its championship course.

The Deerpark Course as it plays today owes much to a pair of well-known designers. Cecil Barcroft laid out the original eighteen holes in the 1920s, and in 1937 the noted Scottish architect Tom Simpson, assisted by the international player Molly Gourlay, remodelled a number of the greens and reworked many of the bunkers. The result is a mature inland parkland course that measures around 6,500 yards from the championship tees and is regularly counted among the leading inland courses in the country. Alongside it, the club also offers the nine-hole Oakpark Course, making up a 27-hole facility.

Visitors, societies and groups are welcome, with booking handled through the club, and there is a clubhouse bar and a professional shop on site. The naturally free-draining terrain helps keep the course playable throughout much of the year, and its setting in the countryside of the south-east makes for a pleasant round close to Carlow town.