American in Spain

This weekend, I represented my local golf club of Laredo, of which I happen to be the reigning champion, in Cantabria’s Clubs Without Courses championship. You may snicker at that, but golf courses in Spain are pretty scarce. Part of it has to do with the lack of popularity of the sport and the ingrained notion that it is a sport for the rich, and part of it is the strict land usage laws. Laredo won the very first Clubs Without Courses National Championship five years ago, and the two best players from the winning club from this weekend will go on to represent the region of Cantabria in the national championship in Córdoba.
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I am a member of the Laredo Club de Golf, the 2010 winner (I did not participate) of the Spanish Championship Between Clubs Without Courses. It’s tough, you see, to have a golf club without a course. We live in a little pocket in northern Spain where there are very, very few golf courses. In fact, the Laredo Club de Golf has more members than any courseless club in Spain. As a member of said club (membership dues are practically nothing without a course), I was invited to play in the 2011 Laredo Club de Golf Championship, played in LLanes, Asturias, nearly a 75 minute drive from Laredo. Due to my own timidity in my spousal “escape for 9 hours on a Saturday” permission submission, it was only two days before the event when I requested to participate. The captain of the club, Pedro, was quick to act and I was immediately entered. So it would come to be that I would get up at 7:45 in the morning on Saturday and drive 75 minutes west to the neighboring province of Asturias to participate in the 2011 championship.
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This past June, I traveled to Ireland to play golf with some friends. I briefly mentioned, in a post about playing Ballybunion Old, that my good friends, Jacob and Jeff, took a walk one evening (while I was in bed shivering with a fever) on the Cashen Course at Ballybunion. I said that I’d post the photos Jacob took, but I never got around to it. Yesterday was Jacob’s birthday, so I thought today would be a good day to post these gorgeous photos he took. For photogenic terrain, you really can’t beat golden hour on an Irish links course.
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The following is a document written by my father, Paul Rasmussen, about our trip to Ireland in June 2011.

Foreword

It was October 2005. Jeff, Jacob, Erik and I were sitting around the Captain’s Hoose, our four- story self-catered apartment in Anstruther, Scotland. We were almost done with our wonderful week-long golf vacation at St Andrews, when Jacob said “Let’s do Ireland next!” We had all been sampling those things that the Scotch are famous for, and agreement was quickly reached. The year 2008 was tentatively suggested, and agreed to by all. When 2008 arrived, Jacob asked again – “What about Ireland?” I responded to him like the old fogey I was. I told him that I thought I could probably return to the UK to golf one more time, but I loved the links golf in Scotland, and if I could go back one more time, I just couldn’t see doing anything other than a return trip to St Andrews.
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On June 18, 2011, we all got up fairly early, but not to play golf. It was “go back to the airport” day. We checked out of the Perryville House, piled into our rented “people carrier” and began the two hour drive for Shannon airport. Since I had lived and driven [on the wrong side of the road] in England for four years and also get motion sickness when I’m in the backseat, I was the designated driver for most of our Ireland trip. This was great, except for when everyone else nodded off to sleep and I had to fight the same urge myself. We drove through Cork and headed due north up to Limerick and eventually to Shannon. First, however, we had to stop at the original Bunratty Courtyard B&B that the others had stayed in to pick up Paul and Jeff’s golf club travel bags, which had been left behind in the interest in fitting all of us in the vehicle. Jacob and I would be staying that night at the B&B before our early departures the following day. After leaving Jacob and his and my things at the B&B, I drove Jeff and Paul to the airport where we hugged and congratulated each other on a wonderful trip.
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On June 17, 2011, we played one of the most unique golf courses on the planet: Old Head. Originally just a peninsula jutting into the Atlantic Ocean, it was purchased in 1989 by the O’Connor brothers, John and Patrick, for a mere 245,000€ from a farmer who was frustrated that his sheep kept falling to their deaths over the steep cliffs.

When humans first settled Ireland over 6,000 years ago, they immediately recognized the Old Head peninsula as an easily defendable lookout post. There are still traces of Iron-age Celtic structures at Old Head. From ancient times up until the 17th century the Stone of Accord, a stone with a hole in it at arm height, was used to seal important deals, including weddings. Each wedding agreement was only good from one year, from May until May, and had to be renewed by shaking hands through the Stone of Accord each year.
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We left our B&B, O’Donnabhain’s too early to get breakfast, but a nearby bakery was open, and we each had a scone. On June 16, we were going to be playing a course called Ring of Kerry on the fourth and final round of our County Kerry Classic. Ring of Kerry was our only parkland (not links) golf course. It was also more inland, although it had spectacular views over an ocean sound. It was very different, but quite lovely in its own way. It had rained the night before, and the weather radar in the clubhouse called for rain all day. “So this would be our miserable rain day!” we all thought.
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After playing Tralee, we drove to the town of Waterville where we stayed the night at the Old Cable House B&B, a building constructed by the Commercial Cable Company in 1899 to house workers involved in laying the first ever transatlantic telegraph cable. Upon checking in, the proprietor and chef, Alan Brown, informed us that he was somewhat of an expert in cooking fish and asked us if we’d be staying for dinner. It had begun to rain and we decided that eating in the same building as our beds made some sense. My salmon was, in fact, delicious.
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On Tuesday morning, June 14, we got up fairly early and packed the van. This was the first time we had all of our belongings and the four of us in the van. The truth is, it wasn’t really a van; it was an Opel Zafira, what the Europeans call a “seven seater people carrier”. With four suitcases and four sets of golf clubs and a couple backpacks, it was pretty tight. After breakfast we headed for Tralee, a 45 minute drive.
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My father let me sleep in a little on Monday morning to recover from being sick and not having slept much the previous night. After a shower, I met the others downstairs for breakfast. I wasn’t quite up to a full Irish breakfast, but I managed to eat some eggs and toast. I was, however, ready for my first day of Irish golf on the Ballybunion Old Course.

We had a teams rematch between the “Old Toms” and the “Young Toms” to play that day. Originally scheduled for the day before on the Cashen Course, the competition had been moved forward a day so that I could participate. Back in 2005, the Old Toms won, and this time the Young Toms were out for vengeance!
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