18 TEE BOX THE BIG PICTURE The par-five fourth at Carne Golf Links, on the northwest coast of Ireland, photographed by Kevin Markham. Eddie Hackett designed the original 18-hole layout in the early 1990s and Ally McIntosh added a new nine in 2013. Those holes are now the back nine of the club’s Wild Atlantic Dunes course, which has Hackett’s original back nine as its front nine. McIntosh is overseeing bunker and tee renovations to all 27 of the club’s holes, beginning with the Hackett holes of the Wild Atlantic Dunes course, which reopened in May 2026. The remaining nines will be completed over the next two winters. “A new bunker scheme and green surrounds on the fourth brings strategy into the second shot on this gorgeous par five, allowing the land over the approach bunker to feed the ball into the green,” said McIntosh. Other work has included a new bunker on the second to marry in with the natural sand scars and the scale of the site, and reworking the fairway bunker on the sixth to have undefined edges that mimic the freeform nature of the links. “The rawness of Carne is part of its appeal, but we can maintain that feel whilst still elevating the strategy, detail and presentation,” said McIntosh. “Our goal is to lift it to the next level where people fully realise its world-class status.”
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