Cullinan Links Golf Club

Played the River/Mediterranean course off the white tees, which at just over 6000 metres was not a long course, and the extremely wide fairways made it very playable. The course was let down by the poor condition of the greens, which were 'shaggy' and had different grasses at different points of the course. Bunkers were also poor, with 'soft and spongy' edges that lead to a couple of unplayable plugged lies under the lip. Many of the holes lacked definition due to the acres of space off the tee, and the slightly ugly seaside scrub areas on the Mediterranean 9. There were also many bare patches on fairways that should have been marked 'under repair', but remained in play. Facilities were good - even luxurious, and the value for money was reasonable (€60 green fee included the cart). The course was nearly empty due to the summertime heat (30o plus at 8am!), meaning that it was easy to get round in just over 2 hours as a single. I would say this is a decent resort course, which doesn't pose many challenges off the tee, and would suit higher handicap golfers well. For myself, I prefer the more challenging layouts of the Sultan or National, so I doubt I will be returning for now. Note that the 'Forest' nine was under reconstruction.

The main benefit about Titanic was that we were staying in the adjoining Titanic Hotel. This made things much easier (and cheaper) in the mornings as we were able to jump on the regular golf-buggy shuttle service from one to the other. We played two permutations of the 27 holes - I don't think we could choose, but they were rotated for the second day so it was fine. All three 9s were excellent. We probably preferred The River 9 but more from a views perspective than anything else. Compared with most of the other courses we played this definitely had the least "trouble". Even The Forest 9 was less enclosed than some of the more tree lined courses we played. Only slight annoyance was that it was 35euro for a golf cart on the day or 50euro to book in advance. For our first round they had none available so we walked it. We therefore booked one for the second day and felt like we were being ripped off a little. As will all of the courses, it was back to back 4 balls from ~7.30am until about 10am, and we were held up from time to time as we were a 3 ball.