User:Thehungryphilosopher/sandbox

=Golf In Ireland= The Royal Curragh Golf Club was the first golf club built in Ireland in 1853. Golf in Ireland continues to enjoy a healthy patronage rating fourth in the Top Ten Most Popular Sporting Activities of 2008. Also in 2008, membership in the Golfing Union of Ireland was at 166,419 and membership in the Irish Ladies Golf Union was 49,822, making them third and seventh in the Top Ten Sports by Club/Association Membership respectively. Golf ranks third in Euros spent on activities in Ireland by overseas travelers bringing 183m in 2012. In the same year, the game of golf contributed over 15b Euros to the total European economy. In 2007, Pádraig P. Harrington became the first golfer from the Republic of Ireland to win The Open Championship, the oldest of the four Men's major championships.

Notable Courses
The Republic of Ireland has twenty-six different counties, seven different types of regions, and nearly 300 different courses to suit any golfers needs. Courses in the West offer views alongside the Atlantic Ocean which symbolize links-style golf instead of the standard Country Club "tree-lined" look. Then there are courses with great history such as Portmarnock in the Dublin region, which was home to fifteen Irish Opens. If you are looking to play what our golfing forefathers played on, then there are courses that were established in the 19th-Century such as Lahinch in County Clare (1894) and the Royal Curragh Golf Club in Kildare (1858) that still receive great amounts of play and tourism. Here is a list of notable courses in the Republic of Ireland;


 * Adare Manor Golf Club
 * Ballybunion Golf Club (Old)
 * Ballyliffin Golf Club (Glashedy)
 * Ballyliffin Golf Club (Old)
 * Belmullet Golf Club (Carne)
 * County Louth Golf Club
 * County Sligo Golf CLub (Championship)
 * Donegal Golf Club
 * Dooks Golf Club
 * Druids Glen Golf Club
 * Enniscrone Golf Club(Dunes)
 * European Club
 * Fota Island Golf Club (Deerpark)
 * Headfort Golf Club (New)
 * Island Golf Club
 * K Club (Palmer)
 * Killarney Golf and Fishing Club (Killeen)
 * Killeen Castle Golf Club
 * Lahinch Golf Club (Old)
 * Mount Juliet Golf Course Conrad
 * Old Head Golf Links
 * Portmarnock Golf Club (Championship)
 * Portsalon Golf Club
 * Rosapenna Golf Club (Sandy Hills)
 * Tralee Golf Club
 * Trump International Golf Links, Doonbeg
 * Waterville Golf Club

Irish Golfers
Pádraig Harrington was the first golfer from the Republic of Ireland to win The Open Championship. Other notable Irish golfer's include; Sir Alexander William Shaw Founder of Limerick and Lahinch golf clubs; Rhona Adair, a female Irish golfer who contributed to the first American book on golfing for women entitled Golf for Women in 1904; and Paddy Skerritt who won many Irish tournaments with his greatest success at the 1970 Alcan International.

Limerick]] and Lahinch golf clubs
 * Adair, Rhona K. (1878–1961)
 * Boyle, Hugh F. (28 January 1936 – 23 May 2015)
 * Bradshaw, Harry (9 October 1913 – December 1990)
 * Car, Joseph Benedict (22 February 1922 – 3 June 2004)
 * Coughlan, Richard (born 7 April 1974)
 * Darcy, Eamonn Christopher(born 7 August 1952)
 * Doyle, Patrick Joseph (10 March 1889 – 29 March 1971)
 * Dunne, Paul Colum (born 26 November 1992)
 * Garvey, Philomena (26 April 1926 – 5 May 2009)
 * Grant, Stephen (born 14 April 1977)
 * Harrington, Pádraig P. (born 31 August 1971)
 * Harrison, Mary (played in the 1913 United States Women's Amateur Golf Championship).
 * Hezlet, Florence (born c. 1884)
 * Higgins, David William (born 1 December 1972)
 * Kehoe, Justin (born 14 February 1980)
 * Kinsella, James J. (born 25 May 1939)
 * Laerie, Peter (born 22 March 1974)
 * Lowry, Shane (born 2 April 1987)
 * Maguire, Leona (born 30 November 1994)
 * Maguire, Lisa (born 30 November 1994)
 * Martin, James (1924 – 14 February 2000)
 * McDermott, Joe (born September 17, 1940)
 * McGeady, Michael (born 11 May 1978)
 * McGinley, Paul Noel (born 16 December 1966)
 * McGrane, Damien (born 13 April 1971)
 * McNulty, Mark William (born 25 October 1953)
 * Moriarty, Colm (born 12 June 1979)
 * Murphy, Gary (born 15 October 1972)
 * Nolan, Keith (born 11 January 1973)
 * O’Connor Jnr, Christy(born 19 August 1948)
 * O’Connor Snr, Christy (born 21 December 1924)
 * O’Leary, John (born 18 August 1949)
 * O’Sullivan, Denis (born 11 March 1948)
 * Parke, James Cecil (26 July 1881 – 27 February 1946)
 * Phelan, Kevin (born 8 November 1990)
 * Shaw, Sir Alexander William (27 October 1847 – 1923) Founder of [[Lahinch Golf Club|
 * Skerritt, Patrick Joseph (29 May 1926 – 21 November 2001).
 * Smyth, Desmond John (born 12 February 1953)
 * Thorton, Simon (born 18 March 1977)
 * Walton, Philip Joseph (born 28 March 1962)
 * Wynne, Philip P. (born c. 1873)