I’m sitting at home one day in June of last year when my good buddy Gerry Carry gives me a call. In typical Gerry fashion he starts the call with…

“Hey bud, want to go to Ireland and play some golf?”

Do I want to go to Ireland? Was that rhetorical? Of course I want to go to Ireland! But I was about to take my dad to Bandon Dunes for Father’s Day. How in the world was I going to convince my loving wife to let me escape again for a week overseas?

What about plane tickets, hotels, courses? My head was scrambled thinking of could I go and how complicated are the logistics. I had done zero research. I wasn’t prepared.

Lucky for me, the trip was organized by Beyond Golf Tours. Other than a plane ticket, I pretty much just had to show up, smile, and play golf. In another stroke of luck… Tickets from Dallas to Dublin are surprisingly affordable and it’s a fairly short flight.

I reluctantly told my wife I was invited… fully expecting to have to beg and plead… but I married an all star who said I “had to go". I’m in. I couldn’t book a plane ticket fast enough.

Let’s go make some memories.

The golf started at Jameson Links at the Portmarnock Resort just outside of Dublin. Right on the beach, it was our first glimpse of the dunes and environment we were about to embrace. A good teaser for the rest of the week, but you don’t have to take my word for it. You can see every shot.

Traveling was going to be an adjustment. Any time you are on a buddies trip, it’s easy to get all amped up and expect to just go out and play your best… That’s not what happened. Immediately started bogey-bogey-triple. Ouch. Welcome to Ireland.

But hey, you’re still in Ireland. Relax a bit. I found a groove and played the next 11 holes at +1 before stumbling late. We’re still getting our sea legs.

Another thing I learned… Not all strokes gained penalties for bunkers are created equal. The bunkers in Ireland are a much bigger penalty than here in the US.

Castlerock blew me away. The train flying by as we played the holes on the edge of the property. The 9th hole par 3 with the tee box tucked in a dune. And an absolutely unforgettable sunset from on top of the hill. See it for yourself.

You have to hit greens. The greens are firmer in Ireland and if you miss… you can get in some bad spots. The bunkers ate me alive. I just bled bogeys on Castlerock, but loved every minute of it.

This course has hosted an Irish Open and the front 9 might be the coolest 9 holes I’ve ever played. Seriously. The way it is carved out of the dunes feels absolutely like the golf course just belonged there. My jaw was on the floor for much of the front. An unbelievable course.

Making content is hard. We were filming matches. Doing course reviews. Making shorts. It’s a lot harder than you might think. Certainly not complaining, but trying to soak in the trip and play good golf while worrying where the camera was at, who was where in the match, what it’s going to look like online… It’s a lot. The big guys you see on YouTube… It’s not easy, but it sure is fun.

We were invited by a member to play Royal Portrush… This is just a month or so after the British Open. I mean… what a treat. We weren’t allowed to film as they were still tearing down grand stands… but the place was immaculate. The TV doesn’t do it justice.

Golf just keeps giving back. Playing Royal Portrush with a member and seeing how proud they were of the course and their home was awesome. Chatting it up with the caddies. Soaking it all in. You just get to meet such great people on the golf course. Nowhere else do two complete strangers hug at the end of a day.

This was probably the truest links course we played, though we never really got true links conditions. A light wind by Irish standards, we were truly spoiled again. The courses were in such great shape with views for days. I stopped playing matches and I started playing better golf.

The difference between the links courses I’ve played in the US and those in Ireland is really the difficulty. The fairways on these links courses were much tighter and the fescue was much more penal. You go play at Bandon Dunes and it can get windy, but the fairways are quite generous and you have to really go looking to find any rough of serious consequence on most holes.

Glashedy is the more challenging of the two at Ballyliffin. It’s hosted DP World Tour events. The layout has more elevation changes and is a bigger test. Just a phenomenal piece of property and it was definitely one of my favorites of the trip.

Soak it all in. You can get mad at bad golf in beautiful places… or you can accept that you get to be outside, playing golf, hopefully with good people. I realized that I had been putting a bit of pressure on myself to play well and was forgetting to just enjoy the experience. And when I started enjoying it more… I played better.

Ardglass is hard to wrap your head around. It is certainly the most dramatic of the courses we played, with the first few holes cut right out of the cliff. We were told Ardglass doesn’t have a full on irrigation system and is heavily reliant on weather to maintain the golf course. And after weeks of drought, the course was firm and fast. In great shape… but easily the firmest golf course I’ve ever played. It offered a unique challenge and maybe some of the best drone footage on the trip.

These trips are always over too fast. Before I knew it we were racing against sunlight to finish our last round of the trip. It would all be over and we’d have to head back to reality. Golf is an escape for most. It’s one of life’s Tangents. You meander off on a little adventure before coming back to emails and doomscrolling. Soak every minute of it in. Golf is one of the few times I truly unplug. We need more of that these days.

That’s it. You can see almost all the golf for yourself in the links above. It was truly a once in a lifetime experience.

In case you missed it, Beyond Golf Tours is helping me put together a trip for Tangenters. I have just a couple spots left. So let me know if you want in.

📍 Where: Streamsong Golf Resort
📅 When: September 10–14
👥 Spots: First 11 golfers to sign up

You’ll play: