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Royal County Down files plans to rework nine Championship holes
Mackenzie & Ebert, who prepared Royal Portrush for two Opens, have designed new tees, greens, bunkers and fairways for the 1st, 3rd, 5th, 11th, 12th and the last four holes. Work could start in the 2027 off-season.
Royal County Down has submitted a planning application to Newry, Mourne and Down District Council to change the 1st, 3rd, 5th, 11th, 12th, 15th, 16th, 17th and 18th holes on its Championship links. The designs are by Mackenzie & Ebert, who built new holes at Royal Portrush before the 2019 and 2025 Opens and altered Royal Birkdale before this year’s. If the council approves them, work could start in the 2027 off-season, BBC News NI reported on Monday.
The 1st gets three new tees and the 5th a new green, according to bunkered’s report on the planning statement. The 16th and 17th get remodelled tees and fairways, and the 16th green is reshaped. Elsewhere the statement lists new bunkers, revised greens and reprofiled dunes. The club’s second course, the Annesley links, is part of the application. Parts of the existing ground would be dug as borrow areas to provide sand for the reshaping.
The club says the aim is to “significantly upgrade the course to reflect RCD’s status as one of the very best golf courses in the world”. The application cites the 2025 Open at Portrush, which research for the R&A and Tourism Northern Ireland said was worth £89.2 million to Northern Ireland, and the 2024 Amgen Irish Open at Royal County Down, which drew about 70,000 spectators. According to the BBC, the club already brings in about 10,000 international visitors a season.
Royal County Down, opened in 1889, has never staged the Open. According to bunkered, the reasons are a lack of space for modern Open crowds and the logistics of the site. The club’s planning consultants, Clyde Shanks of Belfast, put the designs on public display in August, with consultation boards and a computer-generated flythrough of the altered holes. Comments closed on 23 September. The application now goes to the council’s planning committee.
Sources
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