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EVEN a lemon-lipped scrooge with dyspepsia and tooth ache would enjoy an Irish holiday and as a golfer full of the joys of Spring your pleasures will be ten fold if you select the province known as Munster in which to spoil yourself.
Once there, you could simply heave the clubs into the car and go wandering, stopping where the mood dictates at little inns and country houses (they're listed in a guide known as The Blue Book).
Or you could choose to play in one of the sponsored tournaments that abound in Ireland. There's one held somewhere most months and great value is only part of the attraction. Bring a serious thirst and your best singing voice.
Failing this, you might prefer to follow the route suggested by our recommended tour operator, who will help whichever option you choose. That way you'll savour the good things that come in profusion in this enticing corner of Ireland.
Munster is a grand place to wander for a week. It's an amalgam of six small counties, Clare, Cork, Kerry, Limerick, Tipperary and Waterford, that cover the southern half of the country.
Distractions aside, there's good golf at every turn, some of it bearing acclaimed names: Ballybunion, Killarney, Waterville, Tralee, Dooks, to scratch the surface.
Most courses, though, are off the beaten track and there's no better way to sample Irish golf and the welcome it brings.
So let's first drop anchor at Cork, a lively city of some style. It's easy to get into mischief here and the old place is home to several top class courses and fine hotels.
You'll want to put on your dancing shoes and best bib and tucker to savour the city at night but thereafter our first golfing stop is only 15 minutes west where some well-appointed cottages, each sleeping five, are close to the clubhouse at Lee Valley Golf Club.
The course is is one of Christy O'Connor's newer designs, a scenic parkland of some challenge that is destined for big things.
There's a necklace of such courses around Cork and truth be told you could spend a week here. Certainly you'll want to have a day at both Fota Island and Cork.
Fota Island was designed by Christy Jr and Peter McEvoy and though it is relatively new it has some old fashioned values that will delight the purist. And you won't believe the greens! Come here with your irons and putter on-song. A lovely clubhouse, too.
The Cork Golf Club, known locally as Little Island, is a rare gem that has a bit of everything: it opens as parkland, imitates a links where it skirts the river, then acquires a touch of heathland as it turns inland. One hole, set in the base of a quarry, is visually breathtaking. Designed by the great Alister Mackenzie, Little Island offers a joyous experience.
Your next stop requires a drive of 18 miles but that's nothing at all for the delights that await.
The fishing village of Kinsale is known as the gourmet capital of Ireland on account of its ten or more restaurants and these alone would be worth the trip. In addition, though, there's the Old Head of Kinsale Golf Club which is so new the paint has barely dried.
It's a cliff-top course on a peninsula where the next stop west is Boston USA and to say that the views are dramatic is to understate the case.
The great Joe Carr, who knows a thing or two about such things, has described it as "the most incredible setting for a golf course I have come across in my life." You'll gather it's not to be missed.
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