A Billionaire's Course

Originally written for Golf Vacations magazine, Aug/Sep 2019 issue. Updated August 2026 — the Ryder Cup this piece once anticipated is now a confirmed, sold-out reality.

As we pulled in by the gatehouse, with its top-hatted, coat-tailed gatemen welcoming us like long-lost relatives who had, at last, arrived safely home, we began to get the picture of what Adare Manor is.

Once ensconced in our suite overlooking the boxed garden with the 9th and 18th holes billowing behind in the late afternoon light, it didn't take long to shake off the road dust and settle into this latest rendition of "Heaven on Earth."

"Leave Adare Manor to the end of your trip," Barry, my coach-driving collaborator, told me. Barry's company handled transfers for our golf tour clients and Barry knows Ireland. "You'll want to finish on a real high and this place is as high as it gets." He was right. Adare Manor might be one of the finest luxury golf resorts in all of Great Britain and Ireland.

Following a reported €70 million refurbishment, Adare Manor reopened in 2017 having added a brand new 42-bedroom block along with an entirely new spa, boardroom and even a cinema. 350 people are now employed directly by the resort, all of it the passion of one soft-spoken Irishman, JP McManus.

Born in nearby Limerick, McManus started in business with his father's plant hire company and by 21 had caught the gambling bug as a bookmaker at a greyhound track. Horseracing came next — he now owns around 550 thoroughbreds — alongside a wide portfolio built as a private foreign exchange trader, from leisure centres and betting shops to pubs and nursing homes. His net worth today is figured at around €2 billion.

"They shipped in 300,000 tons of sand. If you put all the dumper trucks nose-to-tail, they'd stretch from here to Ballybunion."

Sport is McManus's other enduring passion — interests in soccer and hurling teams, a clutch of golf-related hotel properties, and a genuine golfing habit of his own, including two Alfred Dunhill Links Championship wins partnering Pádraig Harrington.

As I stood on Adare Manor's driving range warming up ahead of my round on the recently overhauled course, up strode Harrington himself, that inimitable road-builder's bounce and all. "Oh, you didn't have to go to the bother, Pádraig," I blurted, thinking he was coming to play with me. He laughed and carried on to team up with his brothers for their pre-round routine. Meant I was probably going out in front of them. No pressure then.

I was actually playing with an old acquaintance, Andy McMahon, director of golf operations at Adare and formerly head pro at The Grove, north of London, where I'd known him as part of a team I greatly admired. Harrington, Andy told me, was a close friend of McManus and had significant input into the course's reestablishment. There had been a golf course fronting the original Adare Manor, and apparently not a bad layout — but you'd barely recognise it now.

All that sand has been moulded into one amazing golf course, the likes of which I've rarely seen. "The Golf Course," as it's simply known here, capitals in place, is very playable from the outset — extra-wide fairways, 7,500 yards off the tips if you want the full challenge, and no restriction on where you play from. It's a largely open course; you can see the holes ahead until around the 12th, 13th and 14th, where older, thicker woods take over. There's a great sense of space and silence — no roads, no distant planes, no house-building or horns blaring, just groups of golfers and their caddies going about their business.

But the overriding impression is how meticulous everything is — wall-to-wall billiard baize with barely any rough to speak of. Andy pointed me to one of the back tees. "You could practice putting on this," he told me. On the 6th, a fascinating long, tight par 3 with water left and behind, the advice was to take a club less and lay up. I pulled it left and got away with it — that's the key here. Don't get sucker-punched by those raised, bold greens; pick a spot to lay up and take the flag on from there.

Fourteen of the greens are upturned saucers with tightly-mown, low-cut bentgrass surrounds almost as smooth as the greens themselves — hitting and holding the ball is everything, and the short-game practice area gets plenty of use because of it. Stepping off the 10th by the river, I asked Andy about a low hum I couldn't place. "We have a full SubAir system to keep the greens dry," he said — essentially a giant vacuum pulling air through the putting surface, keeping the greens firm, fast and dry whatever the weather throws at them.

I finished the round relatively unscathed and hugely impressed. For an inland course, this is something unprecedented — plush and seamlessly precise in every aspect. Hats off to JP McManus and the Fazio team for the vision and technical ability to build something above and beyond any new build I'd seen before it.

Where It Stands Now

When I wrote the original version of this piece in 2019, Adare Manor had just been awarded a Ryder Cup with a date still being worked out. That date is now locked: 13–19 September 2027, and as of this summer, general admission has sold out entirely — the ballot was oversubscribed twelve times over, with fans travelling in from more than 80 countries. Europe's captain, Luke Donald, and USA's Jim Furyk, will lead their teams onto a course I watched Pádraig Harrington warm up on before it had a single flag in the ground for the event. The course has also hosted the JP McManus Pro-Am, with Xander Schauffele beating Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy to the title in the most recent edition — proof, if any were needed, that this inland marvel can handle the very best in the world.

Most golfers come to Ireland for the ancient, rustic links, and that's fair enough. But take on this ultra-manicured marvel first, then head for Ballybunion, Lahinch and Tralee — those hoary seaside links will look even more rugged for the contrast. Adare Manor didn't just rise into the list of the world's great golf resorts. This September, for one week, it becomes the centre of the golfing world.