Course
Opened - August 2003
Course Designer – Colin Montgomerie in Association with Stan Eby of European Golf design
Special Features - The course is acclaimed as something of an inland links. Unusally deep bunkers for a modern course.
General Playability – The course is known to be very tough and with any kind of a wind will present a seriously stern challenge. Greens are hard, fast and designed to feed poor shots into very protective and deep greenside bunkering.
Undulating/Flat – limited undulation
Treelined/exposed – EXPOSED
Many/few water hazards - Only marginally in play on 1, 17 and 18.
Changes to the Course – This is a new venue for the Tour having only opened two years ago.
Greens
Type of grass - Creeping bent grass A1 /A4
Height of cut - 2.8mm
Speed/stimp reading – 10’6”
Any specific comments - Greens have considerable slopes and feed off into very deep bunkers. Very precise approach shots will be required to hold many of the greens. Speed will be controlled to accommodate typical high winds.
Fairways
Type of grass – Ryegrass / fescue
Height of cut – 10mm
General width and contouring – AVERAGE
Any specific comments - Not many straight tee shots. A lot of holes will require very precise direction of the tee or ideally the tee shots shaped to match the direction of the fairway.
Tees
Type of grass – Ryegrass / bent/ fescue
Height of cut - 8mm
Any specific comments - none
Collars
Type of grass - Ryegrass / bent/ fescue
Height of cut – 8 mm
Any specific comments - none
Rough
Type of grass – RYE GRASS
Semi-rough - Height of cut – 1.8m WIDE AT 35MM
Intermediate – Height of cut – 1.8m WIDE AT 64MM
Rough - Height of cut – 100mm
(Unmaintained outside of this)
Any specific comments – Due to the firmness and design of the greens any loss of control will make it very hard to hold the greens so the rough will be very penal in this regard..
Weather
In advance – Relatively dry but cold. Not much growing season ahead of the event but course in very good shape considering.Forecast for tournament – Hot and humid. Thunderstorms expected in the afternoons.
Forecast For Tournament - Potential for quite a lot of rain over the 4 tournament days - cold .
Other Features
The course sits on the Carton House estate which also has the O’Meara Course. Carton House was built in 1739 by the Earl of Kildare and the 1100 acre estate is surrounded by a 5.5 mile wall. The river Rye stretches through the estate for 1.5 miles and recently 70000 salmon smelts were released into the river. 80000 hardwood trees have been planted on the perimeters of the estate as part of an ongoing woodland regeneration programme. The Golfing Union of Ireland will shortly set up their base here with a wonderful purpose built academy and range. Famous inhabitants at Carton have included Grace Kelly , Peter Sellars and Marian Faithful the 60’s Rock Icon made her home in the Shell Cottage for seven years.
The estate sits over 2 counties , in fact if you hit a good shot at the 1st on the Montgomerie course you will tee off in Meath and your ball will land in Kildare. The Estate is currently owned and managed by the Mallaghan family who bough it in 1977.
