The Complete Guide to Waterville Golf Links

The short answer

Yes. Waterville Golf Links takes visitors every day, and its main season runs from 1 April to 31 October. The whole green fee, €400–€425 at 2026 rates, is paid when the time is booked and isn't refunded. Fly into Shannon, 2 h 55 min away, and pair it with Dooks, Tralee and Ballybunion.

Opened

1973golf here since 1889

Green fee

€400–€4252026 main season

Visitors

Every daymain season 1 Apr – 31 Oct

Fly into

Shannon (SNN)2 h 55 min to Waterville

This guide is for the trip captain putting Waterville Golf Links at the center of a week in Kerry. It covers how an Irish-American rebuilt the links in the 1970s and why Payne Stewart's statue stands by the clubhouse, six holes to know before you tee off, what a round costs, Skellig Michael and the Ring of Kerry between rounds, the best places to sleep, and a six-day Kerry itinerary starting at Shannon.

Waterville Golf Links history

The club traces organized golf in Waterville to 1889. It came with the men who ran the transatlantic cable stations on this coast: Valentia Island in the 1860s, Ballinskelligs in the 1870s and Waterville in the 1880s. By 1900 the Waterville Athletic Club ran a nine-hole course for the Commercial Cable Company on the flat eastern part of today's links. The cable work ended in the 1950s, and the links lay dormant through the 1960s.

John A. "Jack" Mulcahy, an Irish-born American, set out to build what the club calls "the most testing golf links in the world". He brought in Eddie Hackett, whom the club calls Ireland's foremost links architect, and his friend Claude Harmon, the 1948 Masters champion and head professional at Winged Foot. The course and a new clubhouse opened in 1973. The old nine was reworked into the front nine, laid out as a contrast to what the club calls the "more rugged and exposed back nine". Liam Higgins, a famous long hitter, was the club's professional for the next 15 years.

In 1987 the links was sold to a small group of Irish Americans, who joined the links to Waterville House, an 18th-century house on the estate, to make a golf and fishing resort. The new owners later commissioned Tom Fazio to update Hackett's course. LINKS Magazine says his brief was to blend the two nines: he moved the 2nd, 15th and 16th greens and replaced the old 6th and 7th with a new par-3 6th and par-4 7th. The club finished a three-phase clubhouse renovation in 2019.

Payne Stewart and the 1990s Americans

Tiger Woods, Mark O'Meara and Payne Stewart played Waterville before the 1998 Open, according to LINKS and Golf Monthly. Stewart came back before the 1999 Open with Lee Janzen, David Duval and Stuart Appleby, and Tourism Ireland says he played harmonica and worked a short shift as guest barman in the Butler Arms that week. He accepted the captaincy of Waterville in 1999 and died in a plane crash that October. A life-size bronze statue of him now stands by the clubhouse.

The club says more than 40 of the game's great champions have played the links, from Sam Snead onward. The Ireland Golf Tour Operator Association named it Links Golf Course of the Year at the 2024 Irish Golf Awards.

The holes to know at Waterville

Waterville Golf Links is a par 72 of 7,347 yds from the Black tees, the longest of five sets. The White tees play 6,556 yds and the Green 6,252. The front nine is a par 35 and the back nine a par 37, with three par 5s, and both nines finish at the clubhouse. The club's own description says "there are no blind shots", so you see the target on every swing. Lengths below are from the Black tees.

2nd, Christy's Choice

The hardest hole on the card, and one of the three greens Fazio moved. At 464 yds from the back and 405 from the White tees, it's a long par 4 to face this early in the round.

11th, Tranquility

A par 5 that runs through a valley between big dune ridges, as LINKS Magazine describes it. National Club Golfer says many people rate it the best par 5 in Ireland. It measures 498 yds from the back and 461 from the White tees.

12th, Mass Hole

The tee shot carries a hollow where Catholics said Mass in secret when it was banned. GolfPass reports that Hackett planned the green in the hollow itself, but the men building the course refused to work on what they saw as sacred ground, so he put the green on the dune across from the tee. It plays 144–170 yds from the forward tees.

16th, Liam's Ace

Named for Liam Higgins, who made a hole in one here. The estuary runs down the right, according to LINKS. Fazio later moved the green, so today's 386-yard hole isn't the one Higgins aced.

17th, Mulcahy's Peak

Hackett put the back tee on the highest dune on the links, and Jack Mulcahy's ashes were buried there after his death in 1994. LINKS describes the view from the top, with the MacGillycuddy's Reeks behind. The green is 194 yds away, isolated by dense vegetation.

18th, O'Grady's Beach

A 588-yard par 5 home along the strand. Golf Monthly's line is that "the beach is a constant threat until you're safely there."

Green fees, caddies and carts at Waterville

The club still shows its 2026 rates. A main-season round costs €400 on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, and €425 on Wednesday, Saturday, Sunday and bank holidays, so a Thursday round saves €25 per golfer on a Wednesday one. The 2027 rates weren't published as of 23 Oct 2026.

The full fee is taken by card when the time is booked, and it isn't refunded, so settle the date before anything else. A senior caddie is €100 for one bag or €200 for two, and a junior caddie €50, all before the tip. The club asks for caddies on a group's behalf but says it can't guarantee them. Golf carts are €50, electric trolleys €25 and pull carts €5.

The club publishes no handicap limit and no dress code. Check both before you travel, and bring a handicap certificate for each golfer anyway.

Skellig Michael and the Ring of Kerry

Waterville sits on the Ring of Kerry, the 179 km (111-mile) road around the Iveragh Peninsula, and the club calls it the only seafront village on the route. A free day here has three obvious uses.

Skellig Michael

A monastery on a rock island 11.5 km out to sea, and one of only two UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the Republic of Ireland. You get there on a licensed boat from Portmagee, Valentia, Ballinskelligs, Derrynane Harbour or Glen Pier. Portmagee is about 20 minutes from Waterville by road. The landing season ran from 12 May to September in 2026 and depends on the weather. As of 23 Oct 2026, the Office of Public Works hadn't published 2027 dates. The climb is 618 steep steps, children under 12 can't land, and the visit averages 2.5 hours before the boat trip.

Derrynane House

Daniel O'Connell's family home, 3.5 km from Caherdaniel off the Ring of Kerry. It holds the triumphal chariot Dublin gave him in 1844. The 2026 season ran from 13 March to 1 November, and adult admission was €5.

Charlie Chaplin in Waterville

Chaplin first came to Waterville in 1959 and holidayed here for more than ten years, staying at the Butler Arms and fishing Lough Currane. A life-size bronze of him, unveiled in 1998, faces Ballinskelligs Bay from the seafront.

Where to stay near Waterville Golf Links

Stay in Waterville itself if the golf is the point of the trip: the three places below are in the village or beside the links. For a five-star hotel, look at Kenmare, about 55 minutes away by road. These hotels have no pages on golftripbuilder.com yet, so the details are from the hotels themselves.

• Waterville House

  On the links estate · a Georgian house from 1790, run by the golf club, with a dozen or so rooms. Guests get preferential tee times every day and their own practice ground

• The Smugglers Inn

  Across from the links · 13 rooms, a restaurant and the Payne Stewart Bar, a minute or two's walk from the 1st tee

• The Butler Arms Hotel

  Waterville village · 4-star, reopened in April 2026 under new owners, about 1.5 km from the course

• Sheen Falls Lodge

  Kenmare · a five-star Relais & Châteaux estate on Kenmare Bay, 72 rooms and suites

Make Waterville Part of Your Trip

Tell us when you travel, how many are coming and which Kerry links you want, then shape the day-by-day plan to suit the group.

Plan My Waterville Trip ↗

Where else to play near Waterville

Dooks is close enough for a second round from a base in Waterville. Tralee and Ballybunion are in north Kerry, closer to 2 hours away, so most groups split the week between two bases. The linked courses below have full pages of their own, with visitor days, handicap limits and the catch at each club.

• 

  Dooks

  50 min

  An old links on Dingle Bay, and the easiest second round from Waterville. Visitors play in set windows every day, with a handicap limit of 54, but it's members only from 20 October to 31 December.

  View Dooks →
• 

  Tralee

  1 h 45 min

  An Arnold Palmer links on the north Kerry coast. Visitor times are 08:00–15:00 on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday only, and half the fee is a deposit you don't get back.

  View Tralee →
• 

  Ballybunion

  1 h 50 min

  Visitor rounds on the Old Course are Monday-to-Friday mornings, in a season that ran 13 April to 2 October in 2026, and each group takes a caddie or forecaddie. Cancel within six months of the round and the club keeps the whole fee.

  View Ballybunion →
• 

  Adare Manor

  2 h 20 min

  The 2027 Ryder Cup venue, inland in County Limerick. The resort's own guests come first, and for 2027 it sells golf only as two-day packages.

  View Adare Manor →
• 

  Old Head

  2 h 50 min

  Cliff-top holes on a headland south of Kinsale, in County Cork. Its 2027 visitor season is 14 April – 31 October, and high-season rounds cost €550.

  View Old Head →

• Hogs Head Golf Club

  A Robert Trent Jones Jr links in Waterville, 7,155 yds, with holes above Ballinskelligs Bay. It publishes no visitor policy, so ask before you plan around it.

Further north, Lahinch is 3 h 30 min from Waterville by road. If Clare is on the list too, the complete guide to Lahinch Golf Club has the route from Shannon, and the Old Head Golf Links guide covers a week that starts in Cork and runs west to Waterville. For a trip built around the Ryder Cup, read the guide to Adare Manor golf in 2027.

Your Waterville Golf Trip Starts Here

Play Waterville, Ballybunion, Tralee and Dooks in a week from Shannon. The sample below takes six days and four rounds, and every part of it can be changed for your group.

The visitor rules set the order. Ballybunion's Old Course is a weekday-morning round for visitors, and Tralee shuts them out on Wednesdays and weekends, so north Kerry comes first. Dooks keeps weekday windows, and Waterville is open every day, so the week ends in the south. Waterville goes on a Thursday, one of the €400 days at 2026 rates. All four courses take visitors from May to September, so plan the week inside those months. Drive times are the road-routing figures golftripbuilder.com's course pages use, measured with no traffic; allow more in July and August.