The Irish Stew

Like their counterparts in the United States, Irish architects are finally starting to talk about their overbuilt golf market and what the future holds for golf design.

Yes, there are too many golf courses in Ireland -- something like 425, according to a recent story in the Sunday Independent, with 75 of them added in the past 14 years. That's a lot courses for a country the size of Indiana, even if the people who live there are crazy for golf.

But the real problem is that Irish developers, like their U.S. counterparts, have been building the wrong kind of golf courses -- layouts that are too long, too difficult, too expensive to maintain, and cost too much to play.

We're talking, of course, about those "high-end" daily-fee courses that were all the rage just a decade ago, when legions of people could afford to throw away $75 or $100 -- and sometimes more -- on a round of golf. In Ireland these days, according to the Independent, such facilities -- just like their counterparts in the United States -- are slashing their greens fees and desperately fighting for survival.

Declan Branigan, an Irish architect and agronomist, told the Independent, "Golf in Ireland is at a crossroads, and we need to think long and hard about where we're going."

Do we really? Because the way I see it, there really isn't a crossroads. We've already gone way past that spot in the road.

After everything that's happened since the crash of 2008, and without a sizzling housing market to make people forget about market fundamentals, who in his right mind is going to build -- let alone lend money to build -- an over-designed golf course conceived by an over-inflated architect, especially if it can't possibly turn a profit?

For sure, it won't be the home builders who've floated golf's boat for the past two decades. Their bubble has burst, and they won't be able to justify building $20 million "loss leaders" anytime soon.

So where is the crossroads, exactly?

Because it seems to me that there's really only one road to take: To go smaller and shorter and cheaper. To make golf more affordable and maybe even more fun.