Course Development: Philip Reidtakes a visit to Dun Laoghaire Golf Club's new home in the foothills of the Dublin mountains and has a hard time picking his jaw up off its pristine pastures and state-of-the-art clubhouse facilities

Rarely, if ever, has word of mouth travelled around the golfing community with so many kudos attached. For those on the outside, there is perhaps a touch of the green-eyed monster; for those on the inside who are members of Dun Laoghaire Golf Club - and British Open champion Pádraig Harrington is one of them, having taken his cheque book out of his back pocket to join as a full member rather than accept honorary status - there is a touch of satisfaction, and a little relief, that the club's brave move from its former land-locked home to a new facility at Ballyman Glen in the foothills of the Dublin mountains has been so seamless.

Having officially opened its gates on August 6th, the past few weeks have been just a little hectic as members - and their guests - have gotten acquainted with a clubhouse and auxiliary facilities that honestly wouldn't be out of place in the American country club set, while the Martin Hawtree-designed course, with three loops of nine holes, is further testimony to the fine work that this particular architect is responsible for creating.

In terms of location, about 20 minutes away from the old Harry Colt-designed course on Tivoli Road which was squeezed into 78 acres and had become overtaken by the passage of time, the new set-up at Ballyman Glen - with Djouce mountain, the Sugarloaf and the Little Sugarloaf affording wonderful vistas from the clubhouse and from just about everywhere on the course - is truly spectacular and is an example of what can be done in achieving a move from an old course with many fond memories to a new one that offers so many prospects for the club's membership heading into the future.

Indeed, the move to new pastures has not meant that the old place has been forgotten. As you move from one room to another, be it from restaurant to bar to function room to bridge room, there are connections with the old Dun Laoghaire as each room has been given a name that has links with the past. Tivoli. Eglington. Kingstown. And so on.

There are photographs lining the walls, and paintings, that remember the old; but, already, it seems that the move to Ballyman Glen has had an uplifting effect on the playing membership of this club that boasts some 1,700 members. Not having won a GUI pennant since lifting the Barton Cup in 1947, Dun Laoghaire has revisited the winner's enclosure on two occasions in 2007, winning the Bloom Cup and the Metropolitan Cup, while the women won a first national pennant when claiming the Ladies' Junior Foursomes and the Minor Cup in the ILGU club finals.

One photograph is of the club president Terry Reynolds turning the sod on the new development, back in 2005. Two years later, the dream has been fulfilled; and Reynolds, in honour of the part he played, is still president. In his view, the move by Dun Laoghaire is "arguably the most important made by a Dublin-based golf club in recent decades, (and) will ensure that the club (formed in 1910) will thrive for a further 100 years."

The move from the much-loved yet increasingly constrained course in the heart of Dun Laoghaire came about after approaches from the property development group Cosgraves - agreed by the members in 2002 - and involved a land swap, under which the property company built the new facility on 328 acres incorporating 27-holes, a magnificent clubhouse that has been built (like the course) to top specifications, a state-of-the-art 14-bay driving range complete with indoor video analysis and gym as well as a bowling green.

Additionally, the club has also had around 20 million lodged into its accounts as part of the deal.

Anyone visiting Dun Laoghaire's new home is in a for a jaw-dropping experience. It really is magnificent. No stone has been left unturned in creating something special for the members, with even the tee markers of natural stone to complement the Donegal stone that has been used in the building of the clubhouse. "We wanted to encapsulate the whole area, not spoil it," said Pat Smyth, chief executive of Dun Laoghaire Golf Club.

Other very sensible measures have been invoked, including a garage that houses 45 electric buggies, a secure area where members can keep - and charge - their trolley batteries and a modern storage area for golf bags. "The whole emphasis (throughout the move) was on making sure our members were looked after and that they wanted for nothing," said Smyth, who comes from a family with a long tradition of the game. He is a brother of tour player and last year's Ryder Cup vice-captain, Des.

Smyth, an accomplished single figure handicapper himself and a graduate in management studies from Leeds University, previously worked at Woodenbridge Golf Club before moving to Dun Laoghaire to oversee the move and to ensure that the club spirit that was manifest in the old place is transferred to the new home. So far, the move has been seamless, the road to the club has been a busy one with members eager to show off their new clubhouse and course to friends.

"This is a members' club and I think Dun Laoghaire Golf Club has continued the ethos of amateur golf, which is its whole raison d'etre. The club's purpose is for the promotion and development of the amateur sport of golf. That is the cornerstone of this club," said Smyth.

The success of the move, in Smyth's view, is down to the unselfish decision of many older members to vote for change even though it was an inconvenience to many of them. He explained: "The success of this is down to the way the club structured it. They first of all had to go and get the permission of the members and, here again, the more senior members of the club deserve an awful lot of credit because, if you're 65 (years old) plus, 70, 75, you may not like the move. But the club members voted by a large percentage to move and that was down to the senior members looking to the future for the younger members of the club."

A club relocation committee was established, which came to be known amongst the membership as the "Three Wise Men". Consisting of Derek Montgomery, Frank O'Rourke and Ted Burke. This committee - and other sub-committees that were established - oversaw the construction of the new facility and the handover, which led to the move en masse on August 6th.

The land where the new development has been built was farmed by the Leeson family for four generations, and the soil, it seems, was tailor-made for a golf course.

Still, no chances were taken with the sandy soil that mother nature provided and the drainage and irrigation systems which have been installed during the course's construction are of the very highest specifications. All the lakes have been man made and all the water recycled; and the arrival of swans and ducks has already added to the ecological process.

"Our objective is to run this facility to the highest standard. No short cuts will be taken. We've been given a magnificent golf course and we're going to maintain and enhance it. We've given a commitment to the Hawtrees to have an annual audit to ensure the golf course is always maintained to a high standard."

Indeed, an indication of the scale of change for those at Dun Laoghaire is that the old course had eight full-time greenstaff. Now, that has been increased to 21, including a full-time mechanic to look after the new machinery that has been purchased to ensure that the course remains as pristine as the day it was handed over by the constructors.