New Golf Membership 2012 Offers
(Golf membership from €150)
Blessington Lakes Golf Club is set in the panoramic setting of Boystown in the heart of the Wicklow countryside. Come and enjoy a pleasant game of golf in a location where you can relax and enjoy the picturesque views of the Blessington Lakes and stunning Wicklow Mountains on the outskirts of Dublin.
Blessington Lakes Golf Club, formerly known as Boystown Golf Club, was established by the McEvoy Family in 1997. Built on naturally rolling farmland the design takes advantage of the existing waterways and mature trees.
Blessington Lakes Golf Club was affiliated membership to the GUI in 1998 and currently has 300 members who range from all around Dublin, Wicklow and Kildare.
The course is situated just south of Blessington in Wicklow approximately 11km from Co. Dublin (map)
Visitors are welcome Monday to Saturday although booking may be required. Sundays are reserved for members competitions
Blessington Lakes Golf Club is suitable for all levels of golfers but offers an interesting challenge to the more seasoned golfer as it measures just shy of 7000 yards of the medal tees
The course is open for play all year round and enjoys excellent natural drainage meaning it is rarely closed through the winter
Green Fee Rates:
- 18 holes €20
- 9 holes €15
Golf Membership Deals at Blessington Lakes Golf Club are currently available from only €150 per year!! So if you are interested in joining a golf club this is probably the best value golf membership around call us for more information or call in and see for yourself.
More info on golf membership deals
Boystown Golf Course opened on a ‘pay and play’ basis in mid-1996, to give the area’s golfers an early look at the new course. It was shorter than the one we know now, with four par-3 holes, no lakes and temporary greens. The final layout of the course was completed in mid-1997, apart from excavation of the lakes. These were completed in 1998.
Blessington Lakes GC will always be a relatively small club, in terms of number of members, because of the limitations of its 9-hole format. However, its small size is also a great strength because everyone knows everyone else and new members feel at home here very quickly. The men’s and ladies’ sections work well together and we choose our Captains and Presidents, and indeed all our Committee members, as much for their friendliness and organisational abilities as for their prowess as golfers. We see this as the basis of our strength in the past and we intend to continue to run the club in this way, for the benefit of our members and for visiting players, regardless of their golfing abilities.
2010 Review – The best Year Yet
This was a great year for the club and it ended with our biggest success so far – so it is worth reading on ! The course, already in fine condition, continued to improve throughout the season, thanks to the dedication of green-keeper Tom Kavanagh, with help from a number of club members on “special projects”. Visiting players, and particularly visiting teams, consistently praised the quality of the course, and described the greens the as among the best they had ever played on, anywhere. The greens were so fast and true for the President’s Prize that they frightened even the lowest handicap players.
A new event, a children’s party, was held in January, with funds raised by the Winos’ evenings of the previous summer. It was an enormous success, with hoards of kids, and featured a late appearance by Santa McEvoy. This will surely become an annual event.
The Captain’s Prize final was played on a spectacularly wet and windy day in July. Despite the dreadful conditions, Mick Nolan won with a cumulative 141 net, shooting a magnificent 67 in the final round to finish tied with Philip Wardick but Mick came out on top after a sudden deah play off with a bogie 5 on the 2nd hole. Tom Barrett scored a hole-in-one on the 5th in the June Medal, the second of the year, following Jay Curley’s at the 3rd in May. Mick was delighted to receive, as his prize, a watercolour painting of the course by local artist and member Clodagh Gale and the Captain, Diarmuid McCarthy, presented the course proprietors, the McEvoy family, with a fine aerial photograph of the course in recognition of their dedicated support of the club over the years.
Paddy Byrne decided to stand down from the Presidency, after four years of outstanding service to the club, and Tony McGinley was elected to the position. His President’s Prize competition, in August, was played in glorious weather with a very large entry. For the first time, (not the first time), it comprised 18 holes stableford from the blue tees, followed by a 9-hole play-off for the top 15 players in the evening. Jamie Tutty, a junior playing off 18, won with 55 points !
The Club Matchplay Tournament had its biggest entry ever – 77 golfers. Matches started in June and the final was played on .. September, between ….. and ….
The Junior Section had a great year too, including coaching in the summer at South County GC, generously provided free by the professional staff there. The benefits of these lessons, particularly among the younger players, were obvious in the summer series of competitions. John Wilson won the low handicap (up to 22) section and Breon Nugent won in the higher handicap group. The 18-hole competition on the final day was won by Sean O’Keeffe with 41 points. P-J O’Keeffe (handicap 17) won the net prize in the Kildare Boys Scratch Cup at Naas GC in July with an outstanding score of 13 under his par, 131 net over 36 holes !
The really big achievements for the club, in this, its 10th full year, came in inter-club competitions. The season didn’t start particularly well, with defeat in the early rounds of several competitions *We reached the Final of the Garden county trophy to be beaten by Arklow GC in the Final). Then things improved dramatically ! We reached the Regional final of the Jimmy Bruenn Cup in July, but were beaten at the final hole of the play-off by Wicklow GC, and we won the Lisheen Trophy at South County GC. Then came the big one – the Provincial Towns Cup – the one we most wanted to win.
Blessington Lakes became a club to be feared in this competition. We beat, successively, Kilcoole, Glenmalure, Wicklow, New Ross, and then met Borris in the semi-final. Cil Dara, who had beaten us in the play-off in the final in 2009, were playing County Meath in the other semi-final. Could we have a re-match in this year’s final ? No, because County Meath won easily. Meanwhile, the tension in the semi-final built steadily. By five o’clock it was two matches won, two lost at home. The five matches at Borris started an hour later and by six we had won one, lost two and were down in the remaining two at the 13th hole. Then both matches were level after fifteen. Time passed very, very slowly as we waited for further news from Borris, then Graham Curran won at the 17th, making it 4-4, leaving Philip Wardick to carry the hopes of the whole club. And he did it – winning at the 17th. Blessington Lakes were through to the final, 5-4 !
The first 9-match leg of the final was played at County Meath GC, Trim, on 8th August. We went down 6-3, but lost three matches at the 18th hole, so things were far closer than the result might suggest. Both teams practiced intensely at Blessington Lakes in preparation for the second leg on 22nd August. The County Meath team played 47 practice rounds, the home team even more. Fairways and rough were mown almost daily, bunkers were trimmed and raked regularly, greens were polished and the whole course looked superb.
After nine holes County Meath were ahead in five matches, down in two and two were all square. Then the Blessington Lakes fight-back began. Paddy Carthy, in the first match on the course, won at the 15th and that seemed to be the signal for the whole team to advance. With eight matches completed, the score on the day reached 6-2 to the home team, making the overall score 9-8 to Blessington Lakes, as a result of some superb performances by the whole team, and Darren Tobin was one up after 17 holes in the final match. Could he clinch it, or would it go to another play-off ? A huge and very tense gallery gathered around the 18th green to find out.
Darren hit a fine drive on the 18th, middle of the fairway and beyond the bell, and the County Meath man was not far behind. Both of them hit good second shots and the gallery was silent. With the pin near the centre of the green, the County Meath man’s third shot finished twelve feet above and to the left of the hole and a murmur ran through the gallery as everyone recognised the difficulty of his putt, but what would Darren do from seventy yards down the fairway ? He hit a glorious wedge to ten feet below the pin ! In a slightly anti-climactic ending, County Meath’s putt narrowly missed the hole and gently rolled well past. Darren putted up to the hole and the match was conceded, giving Blessington Lakes the victory, 10-8 !
Boystown Golf Course then saw its first ever pitch invasion as the celebrations of Blessington Lakes GC’s first men’s GUI Championship victory began. The County Meath team and their supporters were commendably generous in their congratulations. The celebrations continued with the presentation of the magnificent Provincial Towns Trophy, food, music and a few drinks until dawn – a fitting climax to ten outstanding years of golf at Boystown : Blessington Lakes.
