The name “Adare Manor” belongs to two of the most impressive sights in Ireland: the actual Adare Manor and the golf course with which the manor shares its stately 840-acre property. Once the former seat of the Earl of Dunraven and Mount-Earl, Adare Manor is now a luxury hotel. The present-day incarnation of Adare Manor was built in the 19th century, but some of its walls still date back to the 1600s.
As impressive as Adare Manor is however, its namesake Adare Manor golf course is perhaps even more so. Opened in 1995, The Golf Course at Adare Manor started life as an 18-hole championship course designed by Robert Trent Jones Sr. It would go on to host the Irish Open in 2007 and 2008, as well as the J.P. McManus Invitational Pro Am in 2005 and 2010.
It was none other than J.P. McManus who bought the property in 2015, tapping Tom Fazio to update the course. Armed with a blank check, Fazio, who has famously worked on Augusta National, brought some of that same magic to The Golf Course at Adare Manor.
Fazio’s renovation took 18 months. A SubAir system like the one found at Augusta International was installed, the first of its kind in Ireland. The addition of mature trees and more than 200,000 tons of pristine white sand drew further comparisons between Augusta and its Irish counterpart, earning Adare’s golf course the nickname “The Augusta of Ireland.” One thing Fazio left untouched however, was the course’s original routing.