The links of The European Club was designed by Pat Ruddy who continues after thirty years to calibrate the links to meet the challenges of the modern game allowing the champions of today to express themselves while demanding a cerebral approach for true success.

Year after year the work goes on with Ruddy directing design improvements. Few golf courses have had such prolonged attention from their designers with Donald Ross at Pinehurst being an obvious equivalent.

The result is probably the best links of them all as it is fitted precisely to the modern game and is never allowed to grow old. It benefits from the constant inputs of one of the most astute designers the game has seen.

Ruddy aspired to having a golf course of his own since learning that Jimmy Demaret and Jack Burke were founding a golf course of their own, The Champions Club, in Texas in 1958…..what a great idea! ……and it came to fruition when he surveyed Ireland''s coastline by helicopter in search for a classic golf location. There it was at lovely Brittas Bay just 30-miles south of the capital city, Dubin.

Golf design has been a part of Pat Ruddy''s life since childhood and he has completed about thirty-six projects since gaining his first professional commission at Castlecomer in the Irish midlands in 1969. Along the way he has come to be regarded as the world''s leading links designer.

Amongst the links he has designed from concept to completion are The European Club, Ballyliffin Glashedy and Rosapenna Sandy Hills. He has impacted substantially at Portsalon (13 holes), Ballyliffin Old ( 7-holes), Rosapenna Old (12 holes) and Donegal (11 holes).