Dooks Golf Club & A Genuine Kerry Welcome

When friends visit Ireland, there are certain places you feel obliged to show them.

A few years ago, two friends flew over from America, joined by two Swedes and another Irishman, and we spent a few days exploring the southwest. I was delighted to have them here. Equally, I felt a certain responsibility.

After all, I'd spent years telling them how special Ireland was. These were friends from my college years in the US, so they had spent four years enduring my Irish propaganda. When they finally agreed to visit, there was a sense of putting my money where my mouth was.

That's why Kerry was one of the first places that came to mind. And that's how we ended up at Dooks. I knew Killarney would deliver, but at that point I hadn't experienced Dooks myself, so I decided to take a gamble on it.

A few months before the trip, I rang the club to organise a tee time. It wasn't a long conversation and there was nothing particularly remarkable about it. Yet by the time I hung up, I had the distinct feeling that somebody was genuinely looking forward to our arrival.

That feeling stayed with me all the way to the car park.

And as it turned out, it was entirely justified.

The welcome in the pro shop only reinforced it. The club's logo is one of the most charming in Irish golf, but even that struggles to compete with the warmth of the people behind the counter. Within minutes it became obvious that this was a club that was proud of what it had and genuinely excited to share it.

As we rolled a few putts on the practice green, I found myself admiring the views around the clubhouse. Had those been the best views of the day, I would have left perfectly satisfied.

They weren't even close.

The first hole is a solid opening par four. Your attention is naturally on the golf. Then you walk to the second tee. Even if the starter has hinted at what lies ahead, and even if his obvious pride in the place has raised your expectations, nothing really prepares you for that first view.

The mountains rise dramatically in the distance. Water glistens below. Dunes stretch out across the landscape. Everything suddenly feels bigger.

It is one of those rare golfing moments where conversation stops for a few seconds.

For the next four hours, the golf course and the scenery compete for your attention.

Dooks is a proper links course. The wind asks questions. The ground asks different ones. Every type of shot seems to be required at some stage of the round. There is enough challenge to keep your mind occupied and enough variety to keep you engaged.

Yet I found my eyes constantly drifting towards the landscape.

Walking towards the mountains, they pull you in. Walking away from them, you find yourself looking back over your shoulder. Time and again, the scenery interrupted whatever golfing thought had been occupying my mind.

Not that I was complaining.

Back in the clubhouse afterwards, the atmosphere was exactly as welcoming as it had been when we arrived. People wanted to know how we had played, what we thought of the course and whether we had enjoyed ourselves.

And they actually listened to the answers.

The pro shop staff seemed quietly confident that we would be returning before we left. To be fair, with that combination of logo, golf course and experience, there was never much danger of us walking out empty-handed. The merchandise purchase felt less like a decision and more like an inevitability.

With a taxi organised back to Killarney, we settled in for a few pints and the usual post-round analysis. The good shots got better with every retelling. The bad shots became increasingly unlucky.

Eventually it was time to leave.

I sat in the front of the taxi while the others piled into the back. As we made our way towards Killarney, I asked the driver how much the town changes during the summer months.

It was August. The roads were busy. The hotels were full. Visitors seemed to be arriving from every corner of the globe.

I felt I had almost teed him up to complain about the tourists, a common complaint for locals of seasonal towns all over the world.

Instead, he spoke about families who had been visiting Kerry for generations. About Americans returning year after year. About people arriving for the first time and immediately planning their next trip back.

There was a genuine pride in his voice. No sense that visitors were something to be tolerated. No feeling that tourism was simply an industry.

He spoke about welcoming people as though it were part of the county's identity.

And perhaps it is.

For hundreds of years people have travelled to Kerry. Long before golf tourists arrived, visitors were making their way to this corner of Ireland. Generation after generation has grown up meeting those visitors, talking to them, helping them and sending them home with stories.

Listening to him, I started thinking back over the day.

The phone call.

The welcome in the pro shop.

The starter's obvious pride in the course.

The conversations afterwards in the clubhouse.

Earlier in the day, I had viewed those things as examples of a particularly friendly golf club.

Now they felt like examples of something bigger.

The driver spoke about visitors the way people talk about old friends. There was no sense that tourism was something Kerry merely benefited from. Welcoming people seemed woven into the fabric of the place.

Perhaps that's why the welcome at Dooks felt so natural. Nobody was trying to impress us. They were simply pleased we had come.

The people of Kerry still treat visitors the same way it has for generations.

Not as customers, but as guests.