Good value now par for course
T wo recent experiences crystallised for me the future of golf tourism on this island. One involved a look at the delightful new holes which Ron Kirby has designed on the Corballis links in north Dublin and the other was a visit to the Lough Erne resort, where Nick Faldo's handiwork will be formally launched in July.
The figures which jumped out from these sharply contrasting facilities were green-fees ranging from €10 to a weekend rate of €25 at Corballis and a total spend of £30 million at Lough Erne, incorporating two courses, two clubhouses, a five-star hotel, spa and 68 houses.
I defy those superior golfing types created by the Celtic Tiger years to show me a more delightful, short par-three than the new, 125-yard sixth at Corballis, described by the veteran American designer as "one of my best." Given the need for a serious change in our thinking on the cost of golf, this is a good place to start.
And those with more expansive ideas could do worse than note the thinking of Jim Treacy, owner of Lough Erne. Perfectly positioned to observe business life on both sides of the border, he has a home in Dublin where he developed SuperValu in Churchtown, and another in Enniskillen.
"Thank God I kept my feet on the ground; I never lived in fairyland." With those words, Treacy set the tone for a highly illuminating chat, starting with his initial involvement at Lough Erne back in 1999, when Northern Ireland was a lot worse off, economically, than the Republic is today.
As he put it: "Apart from business considerations, this place wasn't really at peace 10 years ago."
For what he described as a "quite reasonable" outlay, Treacy bought a total of 485 acres, including forestry land and the neighbouring Castle Hulme golf course. And when the Faldo course opens with a challenge match between Rory McIlroy and Pádraig Harrington, he will have achieved his objective of a development which appears remarkably mature in a stunning setting.
But wasn't he conscious of dire financial predictions, especially in recent months as the project neared completion? "I think of myself as a realist and this is a long-term project which, I believe, has been developed quite sensibly," he replied. "For a start, we didn't go off and spend millions upon millions on buying land. And when it came to the actual work, everything was done with a direct, hands-on approach."
So far, hotel occupancy would suggest handsome rewards. With a population of 20,000 in an under-developed county, Enniskillen is now being viewed as a gateway to the north-west. And where visitors once came largely from Belfast, 25 per cent of Treacy's current business is from the Republic.
The owner said pointedly: "It took a huge effort. If you were doing this project in the South, the cost would have been closer to £100m than £30m. And you couldn't justify that sort of nonsense. No bank would have given me that level of finance."
Why such a disparity? "Because you would have had about 150 advisers to begin with. Cost-control in the South got totally out of hand over the last 10 years. Employ one adviser and he in turn would employ another 10. And nobody passed any heed because money was easy to get."
He went on: "It was a totally different scenario here. Number one, you wouldn't have got the finance to do it on that scale. I have knowledge of the South and there was no sense nor reason to some of the projects there.
"We started here two years ago on the 68 houses in the form of a village, and deals have been completed on 56 of them. Not at ridiculous prices, but ranging from £300,000 to £550,000 each. In a certain development down south, you'd be talking about €1.5 million for the equivalent house. Which is ridiculous."
Treacy describes himself as an ordinary, retail person who did well in the supermarket business in Dublin. "That's my main business," he explained. "So, when I bought this site, I didn't have unlimited funds. With three local men draining every inch of it, we built the golf course for £6.5 million, which would have been double that elsewhere. I hear crazy money being talked about simply to build one golf hole."
At this point, he felt it appropriate to emphasise that he didn't wish to be seen as some wiseacre with all the answers. But he added: "I think of myself as a pragmatist who lives in the real world. Things have to pay for themselves eventually.
"Simply for tax reasons, hotels were built down south in places they should never have been built. On the other hand, there are some very good golf developments. For instance, Mount Juliet represents really great thinking, in my view. You've got a main house, a lovely golf course, an estate and different tiers of housing. A really nice example of development."
Sitting as it does in a spectacular location on Lough Erne, the Faldo course would provide wonderful images for a European Tour event, which Treacy sees as a distinct possibility down the road. "We could certainly rival Loch Lomond for spectacle," he said.
Continuing his look into the future, he added: "The integration of North and South on a commercial basis has really moved on. In travelling the road from Enniskillen to Dublin every week for the last 25 years, I've seen so many changes. Ten, 15 years ago, people didn't come South to North very much. But today, the whole island is coming together."
On a further note of optimism, he concluded: "Just because people are being asked to cut back a bit, it's not the end of the world. Even in a Southern Irish context, there were only 900,000 in employment 20 years ago whereas today it's closer to 1.5 million. The prophets of doom seem to be getting to everybody, but at the end of the day, there is nobody out on the streets."
So, what can we learn from Lough Erne and Corballis? I believe they're telling us that if developers and customers cut their cloth according to their means, these straitened times could be a lot more tolerable, certainly from a golfing standpoint.
ssport@independent.ie
Eamonn Sweeney is on leave
