The Championship Course at Royal County Down measures from the back tees, and the 229-yard fourth and 483-yard ninth holes have been featured in the book The 500 World's Greatest Golf Holes. In 2018, the Championship Course was ranked as the best course in the world by Golf Digest.
Significant tournaments
Royal County Down has made outstanding contributions to Irish golf from the Club's beginnings, hosting many important tournaments, starting soon after it opened, and continuing to the present day. Notably, the Club in 2007 became just the second Irish venue, after Portmarnock, to host the Walker Cup. The Irish Open on the European Tour took place in late May in 2015, returning to Royal County Down after 76 years. It previously hosted the event three times, all prior to World War II. The British Ladies Amateur Golf Championship were held on the course in June 2019.
Senior British Open Championship: 2000, 2001.
The Amateur Championship: 1970 and 1999.
British Ladies Amateur Golf Championship: 1899, 1907, 1920, 1927, 1935, 1950, 1963 and 2006.
Palmer Cup: 2012 Europe defeated United States, 13½ to 10½.
Irish Open: 1928, 1935, 2015
History
The first course at County Down was built by Old Tom Morris, hired for the sum of four guineas to build a championship course at Newcastle, which opened on 23 March 1889. His course started and finished by the railway station; thus it played through the general area which the Slieve Donard Hotel now occupies. Joseph Tatlow in his book "Fifty Years of Railway Life" describes how as the then General Manager of the County Down Railway he identified the opportunity for the railway company to build a golf course and hotel at the southern end of their railway. Many of the holes were on the grounds that the present-day Championship and Annesley courses at County Down occupy. George Combe began the remodelling of the course in 1900, and was Convenor of the Green from 1900 to 1913. He was made an honorary life member in 1909 and continued making improvements to the course. Harry Vardon modified the course in 1908, the same year King Edward VII bestowed royal patronage on the club. In 1926, the Club brought Harry Colt in to make further improvements. Rory McIlroy named Royal County Down his favourite golf course in the world. Royal County Down Golf Club secured 2nd place in golfscape's World's Top 100 Golf Course ranking 2020.
