Fota Island Golf Club celebrates 30 years
Fota's signature 18th green with the clubhouse in the background. Picture: Niall O'Shea
THIS month marks 30 years since the golf course Fota Island was opened.
A three-time Irish Open host venue, Fota has grown to become of the leading parkland resorts in the country, with an academy, hotel and holiday lodges complimenting the 27-hole championship course.
The original course opened in 1993, a boom time in Ireland for new golf courses as interest in the sport increased hugely.
Based on an original design by Christy O’Connor Jnr and Peter McEvoy, the course and the resort has gone through a number of evolutions to become one of the leading parkland destinations in Ireland.
While anyone playing the Deerpark course now may not link it to the original design, the O’Connor/McEvoy course was impressive in its own right.
Like the current course, it was a challenging layout that provided a good test of golf. As a result it staged two major Irish tournaments in 1995 and 1997.
The 500 acre property in Fota was originally owned by a UK property company, and when Tim O’Mahony’s Killeen Investments purchased it in 1998, changes were on the cards.
Killeen already owned Mount Juliet in Kilkenny and they set about developing the course to meet European Tour standards.
They engaged Canadian golf course architect Jeff Howes to redesign the course in a €1m project that lasted 18 months.
In addition to 18 new greens, new tee box complexes and several redesigned holes, a substantial investment went into the fairways to radically change the feel of the course.
It was the biggest investment in a Cork course and the new layout opened for play in September 1998.
With a new tour spec layout and superb conditioning, Fota quickly became a hit and in 2001 and 2002 it hosted the Murphy’s Irish Open, the final two stagings where the Cork-based brewery was the title sponsor.
Colin Montgomerie was the winner in 2001 with Dane Soren Hansen winning in 2002.
The third evolution of the Fota took place in 2004 when Fleming Construction purchased the property.
The Clonakilty-based developer had an ambitious plan for the estate, and within two years the grounds were fully developed. A new five-star hotel and over 100 holiday homes were built on the property, and Jeff Howes returned to oversee the building of nine new holes to the eastern side of the island.
A new academy was also built, featuring a range, short game greens, putting greens and extensive teaching and custom fitting facilities. The newly named Fota Island Resort hosted the Irish Seniors Open in 2006 which was won by Ryder Cup captain Sam Torrence.
The “new nine” as they came to be known for many years added a new level to the resort. The 27 holes were laid out as three different courses, with the new nine holes combining with the front or back nine from the original Deerpark course.
The Deerpark course plays as a par 71 course and stretches over 6,900 yards with water coming into play on six of the 18 holes.
The property changed hands again in 2013 when the Kang Family purchased the Resort and later that year it was announced that Fota would host the 2014 Irish Open.
That tournament saw a number of new tee boxes built to add length to the course to provide the tour professionals with a challenge.
A new tee box was built on the 6th that brought the water into play.
The championship tee box was built on the edge of the estuary providing golfers with a 175-yard carry over the water to an elevated green.
While most golfers will recognise the course in Fota to be among the leading Irish courses, few might know that it was also the site of the first recorded course in the south of the country.
1881 marked the first recorded course in Cork, although little is known about who set up the club, it is known that the course, called the links field, was adjacent to Fota House.
That original course in Fota didn’t last as clubs began to be laid out in many different areas in the county and by 1900 there were over a dozen courses in Cork.
The last record of the original course in Fota was in 1909 when Lady Barrymore who owned the estate provided a cup for competition between Cork Golf Club and Rushbrooke Golf Club, and the match was played in Fota Island.
It would take over 80 years for golf to return to Fota, but what’s there now is destined to last.
App?
