South of Ballybunion's celebrated Old Course, Cashen occupies a remarkable meeting of Atlantic dunes and the tidal estuary of the Cashen River. Robert Trent Jones Sr. designed the original course, which opened in 1984. For decades the landscape inspired admiration even as the golf divided opinion: dramatic elevations and formidable green sites could make a slight miss feel disproportionately expensive.
A three-winter reconstruction by Tom Watson Design and Graeme Webster's Team Niblick culminated in 2026. The dune scale remains, but a revised routing, rebuilt green complexes and more welcoming approaches have transformed the choices facing a golfer. Cashen is no longer merely the second eighteen at a famous club.
Why You Should Play Ballybunion Cashen Course
There are few more interesting places to see how golf architecture can change without flattening the personality of the land. Cashen climbs and falls through vast sandhills, where the Atlantic and the estuary appear between ridges and the ground can make a short-looking hole feel exceptionally demanding. Its original visual drama was never in doubt. What makes the renewed course compelling is that the same dramatic ground now offers more ways to play.
Before the reconstruction, narrow approaches and severely elevated greens often demanded a near-perfect aerial shot. A slightly misplaced ball could finish in punishing rough or below a difficult bank, leaving little chance of a creative recovery. Enlarged greens and more open run-in areas now give the golfer a reason to consider the contours instead of treating each approach as an all-or-nothing carry. Misses still matter, but more of them lead to a genuine next decision.
This remains an adventurous and physically undulating round. Players who prefer a gentle walk and uninterrupted views of every target may find Cashen's dune corridors less comfortable. For golfers who enjoy elevation, exposed wind and the choice between a low running approach and a higher shot, those same features are much of its appeal. The redesign has broadened the course's range of playing options without making the land any less imposing.
And Cashen is not an imitation of Ballybunion Old Course. The Old expresses generations of traditional links development; Cashen reveals what happens when a bolder, later design is reconsidered around the possibilities of its coastline. Playing both is an encounter with two different architectural eras, not simply two rounds at one celebrated address.
A Landscape Too Good for One-Dimensional Golf
The physical setting has always been Cashen's greatest asset. Sand ridges create sudden changes of elevation, and the estuary introduces a landscape rarely encountered so closely beside a round of links golf. Some holes are visually enclosed by dunes; others open toward water and a broad coastal horizon. That variation gives the walk a changing rhythm and explains why the course has long fascinated visitors.
In the original design, the scale of the ground could overshadow the decisions available to the player. When a tiny green was practically the only acceptable destination, remarkable scenery did not always produce remarkable strategy. The redesigned course preserves the sense of height and exposure but makes alternative lines and trajectories more worthwhile. Clearer sightlines are particularly useful on unfamiliar duneland: a difficult shot is a more interesting challenge when its intended destination can be understood.
The revised sequence also brings the coastline into the round more naturally. Changes around the fifth and seventh reduced an awkward transition and introduced the Atlantic earlier in the playing journey. The point was not to add spectacle—Cashen already had plenty—but to make the sequence of holes work with the terrain rather than continually fight against it.
From Robert Trent Jones to Watson and Webster
Jones created Cashen as an emphatically different response to Ballybunion's duneland: bold elevations, striking contours and green positions that could be unforgiving. The course was never intended as an unobtrusive companion to the Old; its scale and severity were fundamental to its original reputation.
Tom Watson's attachment to Ballybunion long predated the renovation. With Bob Gibbons of Tom Watson Design, Graeme Webster of Team Niblick and Atlantic Golf Construction, the club undertook a comprehensive reworking over three winters. All eighteen greens were rebuilt, approaches regraded, bunkering reconsidered and parts of the routing altered. The completed course returned to visitor play in August 2026.
The effect goes beyond replacing small putting surfaces with larger ones. Good architecture depends on how fairway position connects with the approach to a green. A playable entrance can reward a well-positioned tee shot without demanding an aerial attack, while shaped short-grass surrounds allow a ball to release, gather or turn away according to its landing line. Bunkers remain consequential, but more often create strategic alternatives rather than simply blocking the only sensible route.
Cashen's story is therefore not one of making a famous landscape easy. It is about making that landscape support a fuller kind of golf. The original could be admired for its site while questioned for its severity; the renewed routing gives the site more opportunity to shape a fair contest.
The Ground Game Returns to the Great Dunes
The most important changes are found near the greens. An aerial approach can still be appropriate when the wind and target demand it. But the lower shot now has more ways to enter a putting surface, while the enlarged surrounds create different recovery options from the same general area. Subtlety has been added to a course that never lacked grandeur.
The thirteenth, Pads Bank, illustrates the distinction. The hole travels down through a substantial dune corridor before rising again toward the green. An approach straying to the right could once disappear into an especially difficult patch of native grass. Reshaped ground gives a misplaced ball a better chance of staying in play, bringing a genuine recovery shot back into the equation.
This is not forgiveness for its own sake. A golfer must still decide how much ground to challenge, what flight the wind will allow and where a miss should finish. An expert can pursue an ambitious angle, while a less accomplished player may find an alternative that makes use of the terrain rather than requiring exceptional height and spin. Both face decisions with meaningful consequences.
The character of the round now rests on that relationship between spectacular duneland and recognizable options. Instead of a succession of forced solutions, it asks golfers to interpret an unusual place.
Two Ballybunion Courses, Two Reasons to Play
The Old is Ballybunion's historic anchor and one of the great established championship links. Cashen offers a different kind of satisfaction. The Old's complexities grew across generations of design and refinement; Cashen's substantial 2026 renewal makes the relationship between original landscape and contemporary architectural thinking unusually visible.
Over two rounds, that contrast becomes far more interesting than a ranking comparison. On the Old, the golfer responds to the distinctive lines of a traditional Kerry links. On Cashen, the question is how the same broad dune system can be used to offer varied shots and more recoverable mistakes. Neither experience needs to diminish the other.
For a visitor with only one Ballybunion round, the Old remains the customary priority. For a serious links itinerary with time for more, Cashen has become a separate architectural reason to stay.
Planning Your Cashen Round: 2027 Fees and Visitor Arrangements
The 2027 visitor green fee is €250 per person from April 13–30 and €300 from May 1–September 29. Tee times for visiting golfers are normally allocated on weekdays between 1 and 3 p.m., excluding bank-holiday Mondays, subject to availability. A combined Old-and-Cashen offer is a different product with separate conditions.
Each visiting group must have at least one traditional caddie or one forecaddie; there is no requirement for every golfer to take a personal bag carrier. A senior single-bag caddie costs €130, senior double-bag service €180 in total for two bags, and a junior single-bag caddie €80. Forecaddie service is €140 for a group of one to three golfers or €180 for four. Gratuities are additional.
A buggy is permitted on Cashen for €60, subject to availability and course conditions. Standard visitor buggies are not permitted on Ballybunion Old, a practical distinction for anyone considering both courses.
The reconstruction changed the routing and green sites. Golfers should use the current tee distances when selecting markers for the redesigned routing.
Staying in Ballybunion and Continuing Through Kerry
Ballybunion town is the natural base for both courses. Its pubs, restaurants and seaside atmosphere give the golf day a sense of place beyond the clubhouse. Teach de Broc is directly opposite the club, making it convenient when both rounds are part of the same stay.
Tralee Golf Club offers another striking but different interpretation of Kerry's coast, while Dooks presents a quieter, more understated links rhythm. The Southwest Ireland guide helps place those contrasts within a coherent journey.
Cashen's defining achievement is the relationship between scale and choice. The dunes remain enormous and the weather can be demanding, but golfers now have more opportunities to choose, miss, recover and try a different approach. The land has not become less wild; the golf has become more considered.