{"id":450,"date":"2011-08-10T07:55:39","date_gmt":"2011-08-10T12:55:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tomharack.com\/?p=450"},"modified":"2011-09-01T08:30:06","modified_gmt":"2011-09-01T13:30:06","slug":"secret-to-perfect-irish-weather-take-me-along","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tomharack\/golf\/450\/secret-to-perfect-irish-weather-take-me-along","title":{"rendered":"Secret To Perfect Irish Weather: Take Me Along"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Wind and rain may be standard elements of golf in Ireland, but sun-and-cloud formations are spectacular. The first hole at Enniscrone. Photo: Tom Harack<\/p><\/div>\n

In Ancestral Links<\/em>, John Garrity quotes a recurring conversation between a visiting golfer, about to tee off on an Irish links course, and his caddie.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s the course record?\u201d the golfer asks.<\/p>\n

\u201cTwo days without rain,\u201d is the response.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a running gag, of course, but it\u2019s also true that vacations in Ireland can devolve into slogfests of wind and precipitation, which is why it\u2019s always good to have indoor alternatives like hanging out at a pub.<\/p>\n

The prevalence of meteorological mayhem is also the reason this reporter is powerless to resist the urge to gloat. Not only have the Golf Road Warriors never been rained out during our foray through northwest Ireland, we\u2019ve worn shorts every day \u2013 those of us with the legs for it, anyway \u2013 and have experienced overcast skies only during our round at Carne. It has sometimes been breezy, but never howling.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, this has been more or less my fortune during a half-dozen trips to the Emerald Isle over two decades — including visits in the notoriously marginal months of May and October — during which time I\u2019ve been truly and thoroughly doused only twice, once at Royal Portrush, once at Ballybunion Old.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s one of the reasons our return to Ballybunion \u2013 on what one of our caddies called the best weather day of the year, so far \u2013 was such a thrill.<\/p>\n

Garrity\u2019s 2009 book is a great prelude to any trip to Ireland\u2019s northwest. Subtitled \u201cA Golf Obsession Spanning Generations,\u201d it\u2019s the story of the author\u2019s sabbatical to research his family\u2019s roots in and around Belmullet.<\/p>\n

Certainly it helps to be a golfer in appreciating the tale woven by Garrity, a senior writer at Sports Illustrated<\/em>. But his story is also part travelogue and also paints a distinctive, often harrowing, portrait of the region\u2019s sometimes tumultuous history. New American Library<\/a>.<\/p>\n

#\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 #\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 #<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Ancestral Links, John Garrity quotes a recurring conversation between a visiting golfer, about to tee off on an Irish… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":452,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,2226,5353,39217,85174],"tags":[905,6163,141,414,6161,6162],"class_list":["post-450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-golf","category-perrygolf","category-tourism-ireland","category-golf-road-warriors","category-adams-golf","tag-ballybunion","tag-belmullet","tag-royal-portrush","tag-ireland","tag-carne-golf-links","tag-john-garrity"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tomharack\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2011\/08\/03.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tomharack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tomharack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tomharack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tomharack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tomharack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=450"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tomharack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":454,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tomharack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450\/revisions\/454"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tomharack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tomharack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tomharack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tomharack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}