Paul McGinley provides updates on his major enhancements to Donegal’s golf courses

Irish golfing legend and former Ryder Cup captain Paul McGinley has provided an update on his ambitious course design projects in Donegal, where he is overseeing major enhancements at three of the county’s best-known golf courses – Murvagh (Donegal Golf Club), Dunfanaghy, and Portsalon. 

McGinley, whose parents hail from the county, has long had a deep-rooted connection to Donegal and is passionate about improving its golfing infrastructure. 

“The place up at the top of the left-hand corner of Ireland is called Donegal, and it’s a place where my mum and dad are from, and a lot of times I spent holidays there as a kid, whether it be St Patrick’s Day weekend, the summer, Easter, or Christmas, it was always spent in Donegal,” he said speaking at a Golf in Ireland function. 

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“It was in Dunfanaghy, where my dad is from, where I learned how to play golf. Now that I’m moving into different stages of my career, one of the things that I’ve become really passionate about is golf design and I want to light a bit of a fire under the product that Donegal has.” 

McGinley believes that Donegal is home to some of the most naturally beautiful courses in Ireland, but they are in need of modernisation to enhance their playability and appeal. 

“Donegal has some wonderful and natural golf courses, but they need a bit of an upgrade because like houses they get old, and they need reinvestment and they need a bit of a profile on them. 

“We are over three years on each course and we are doing roughly six holes on each course every year.” 

McGinley has a clear vision for how golf courses should be designed to cater to a broad range of players. 

“My two main things about golf design are, first of all, the playability. I feel too many golf courses are being built too difficult because the average handicap in the world is 17, and that’s not thought about enough. 

“And the second thing I look at is I want a golf course to give you something back and doesn’t require a huge amount of technical brilliance to play. They’re not overly long, and they have targets that are pretty generous.” 

A key element of his design philosophy is ensuring that the courses take full advantage of Donegal’s natural beauty, which he believes is often overlooked in favour of other parts of Ireland. 

“I think Donegal is probably the prettiest county in Ireland and I wanted to highlight the beauty of the county,” he admitted. 

“People want to talk about Kerry being the prettiest county but I’d argue that. Donegal has magnificent mountains and unbelievable raw beaches that can be up to 15 miles long, with massive sand dunes. It’s a magnificent county.” 

His course redesigns are aimed at making each hole visually appealing and easy to navigate.  

“What I wanted to do with these three golf courses in Donegal is create a really good feeling hitting into a green, that it was properly framed, that a fairway was properly framed and could be identified.” 

“So, what we’re doing for that is, we’re moving a lot of earth to try and put a backdrop into greens so that when you’re playing and hitting into a green, way off the playing area behind the green you have this beautiful, broken mound with grass on it, and from there the green stands out.” 

Progress across the three courses has been steady.  

“We’re going to have 12 holes out of 18 done in Murvagh within the next few weeks,” he said. 

The design team’s work is focused on greens, bunkers, and tees as well as native areas, irrigation, and pathways, while bunkers will be renovated, with the number of bunkers to be reduced by around 25 percent to improve playability and reduce maintenance costs. 

“Donegal Golf Club are at a stage now where they have a real forward-thinking committee in place. I think their members felt that, like a house, their course needed an upgrade because they get tired over time and the club was looking for something new, and that’s where we came in,” he told Donegal Live last June.  

“When we met them, we told them what ideas we had, and then one thing led to another where we had a masterplan in place which the members all accepted, so now we’re in the first stage of that plan.”   

Meanwhile, at Dunfanaghy Golf Club, new facilities have been introduced to encourage more local engagement with the sport.  

“In Dunfanaghy, we’ve put in a new driving range which they never had before and already we have lots of kids coming in using it. It’s not very expensive, there’s a cover area which you hit out into the driving range and it’s great to have that facility.” 

Portsalon Golf Club has also seen significant developments, including infrastructure improvements to enhance the overall experience for members and visitors.  

“Then in Portsalon, they had a big EGM a few weeks ago and we got a lot of money passed by the members where we can go and take a loan out to extend the clubhouse, improve the facilities, increase the size of the car park, as well as doing more work to the golf course. 

“I’ve been working on the golf course on and off now for the last 10 years and we’re now just outside the top 20 ranked, whilst when we took it over it was ranked outside the top 50, so there’s great progress in that.” 

Beyond just improving the courses, McGinley sees this project as a way to promote Donegal on a wider stage.  

“In Donegal, we’re a bit of a forgotten county and we’ve not always been able to get the funding, so I’m doing my little bit through golf to shine a light on Donegal and bring it to the forefront of people’s minds, particularly golfers.” 

With McGinley’s expertise and passion driving these projects forward, Donegal’s golf courses are on track to become some of the finest in Ireland, offering an unforgettable experience for both locals and visitors alike.