Jameson Golf Links: The Whiskey Family’s Course, Bernhard Langer’s First Links, and a Dublin Coastline Reborn
Reading time: 5 minutes
Photograph: Portmarnock Resort & Jameson Golf Links.
Long before there was a Bernhard Langer course at Portmarnock, before there was even a Portmarnock Golf Club, there was a whiskey family with a private golf course in their back garden. In the 1850s — when golf in Ireland barely existed outside a handful of military links — John Jameson III, of the whiskey family, commissioned nine holes through the dunes of the family estate at Portmarnock. It was one of the earliest courses in the country, and almost no one outside the family knew it existed.
By the 1890s, land on the peninsula was leased to the founders of a new club — Portmarnock Golf Club, which opened in 1894 and would go on to host 19 stagings of the Irish Open and become the most decorated championship links in the country. The Jameson nine-hole was set aside. The land sat quiet for almost a century. Today, parts of the 8th, 9th and 15th are generally understood to follow the line of the original Jameson golf ground, now within Jameson Golf Links, the resort course that occupies the rest of the family estate. John Jameson III is buried on the property, fifteen yards to the right of the first fairway.
At a Glance
Course: Jameson Golf Links, Portmarnock Resort, Co. Dublin
Type: Links (resort)
Founded / opened: Resort course opened 1995 (as “The Links”); rebranded Jameson Golf Links in 2023
Main architects: Bernhard Langer with Stan Eby (1995); later renovation programme
Par / back tee yardage: Par 71; plays to more than 7,000 yards from the back tees, depending on setup
Best paired with: Portmarnock Golf Club and a Dublin / east-coast leg
Practical note: A resort course with a hotel on site — not to be confused with Portmarnock Golf Club next door, a separate course with a very different atmosphere. Buggies available.
The Course: Langer, Eby, and a Whiskey Family's Estate
In 1992 the resort hotel commissioned a new championship course on the old Jameson grounds. The architect chosen was Bernhard Langer — twice a Masters champion, the German Ryder Cup stalwart, and a player who had become almost as serious about course design as he had been about the game. He had only joined European Golf Design that year. The Portmarnock resort course would be his first links project.
Langer worked alongside Stan Eby, a more experienced architect from European Golf Design, to route the course through the duneland of the estate. The course opened in 1995 as "The Links" and quickly developed a reputation for being a serious, championship-quality links — long, demanding, with nearly a hundred bunkers and large fast greens.
In 2022, after almost three decades of play, the resort commissioned a four-month renovation programme. Five greens were rebuilt, four new tee complexes added, and the 17th was lengthened by a hundred yards. In 2023 the course was rebranded as Jameson Golf Links, formally acknowledging the family who had played golf on this peninsula for nearly two hundred years.
The Signature Holes
The 1st — past John Jameson III's grave: The opening drive runs alongside a quiet patch of estate land where John Jameson III is buried, fifteen yards to the right of the fairway. It is an unusual opening to a championship round — a quiet glance at family history before the round begins — but it sets the tone for a course that is conscious of its lineage.
The 8th, 9th, and 15th — holes that echo the 1850s: Parts of these three holes are generally understood to follow the line of the original Jameson golf ground. The terrain has been refined over time, and Langer's modern eye has shaped the bunkering and the green complexes, but they are widely held to trace the line John Jameson and his guests walked more than a hundred and seventy years ago.
The 17th — the renovated finale: A long par-4, lengthened by a hundred yards in the 2022 renovation, played along the coast with views across to Lambay Island and Ireland's Eye. The new tee box is high; the second shot is often into a freshening wind off the Irish Sea. A four here, with a clean finish at the 18th to follow, is the way most rounds at Jameson Golf Links are remembered.
The views — the Velvet Strand: The course runs along the Velvet Strand, the long curving white-sand beach that gives this stretch of north Dublin coast its name. From several holes you look out across the strand toward Howth Head, with Ireland's Eye and Lambay Island offshore. The light over the bay on a summer evening is one of the genuine pleasures of playing here.
The Jameson Golf Links Experience
Unlike its neighbour — Portmarnock Golf Club, the historic members' club next door — Jameson Golf Links is a resort course attached to a hotel. The resort itself is housed in a Victorian property that was once the Jameson family residence; the building still carries the family's character, with timber panelling and portraits in the public rooms.
The course is more visitor-friendly in feel than the championship links a few hundred yards away. Buggies are available; the dress code is more relaxed; and the post-round routine of clubhouse drinks shifts naturally into hotel hospitality without the visitor having to leave the property. For golf groups looking to combine a serious round with a comfortable base for two or three nights, Jameson Golf Links offers a different proposition to the membership clubs nearby.
Caddies are available on request. The course is genuinely demanding — Langer designed it to test, not to flatter — and a caddie's reading of the prevailing wind is worth the cost.
Getting There and What's Nearby
Jameson Golf Links sits on the same Portmarnock peninsula as Portmarnock Golf Club, fifteen minutes from Dublin Airport and roughly thirty from the city centre. For a Dublin-based golf trip, the two courses pair naturally — historically distinctive, geographically next-door, but architecturally and atmospherically different.
The village of Malahide is five minutes away — its medieval castle, harbour restaurants, and pubs are worth an evening — and the city of Dublin is close enough that a non-golfing partner can easily spend the day at Trinity College or in Temple Bar while the round runs.
Why Jameson Golf Links Belongs on Your List
For a Dublin-based itinerary, Jameson Golf Links offers something the other east-coast links cannot: a course with deep, traceable history (the 1850s holes survive), a Bernhard Langer design that has been refined under modern eyes, and the convenience of staying on-site at a five-star resort built on the same estate. It is one of the most comfortable resort-style golf experiences on the Dublin coast, and it pairs beautifully with the more austere championship character of Portmarnock Golf Club next door.
For visitors who want one east-coast round on their Ireland trip, the Members' course is the historic choice. For visitors who want two — or who are travelling with a non-golfing partner who would prefer a resort to a clubhouse — Jameson Golf Links is the natural complement.
Jameson Golf Links features in Argyle Links' Dublin and east coast packages, often as the resort base for a multi-night stay paired with rounds at Portmarnock Golf Club and other championship venues. We arrange tee-time requests, coordinate hotel arrangements, and arrange chauffeured transfers from Dublin Airport. See our itineraries at argylelinks.com.