Travel: Golfing in Athenry

"LOW lie the Fields of Athenry

Where once we watched the small free birds fly.

Our love was on the wing

we had dreams and songs to sing

It's so lonely round the Fields of Athenry."

Not when you're with a group of golfing buddies, it's not. The song may be a favourite among Irish rugby fans and Celtic football fans, but there's one green patch of the fields at Athenry where the small, dimpled white ball beats the big round or oval one every time.

The song itself – provided over the speakers by the ever-thoughtful Declan, our philosopher coach driver – was still ringing in our ears as we tumbled off the bus into the car park of the Athenry Golf Club. Young John, 48, the baby of the party, led our crew of ageing swingers with dodgy hips, various ailments and ghastly Guinness-induced hangovers towards the clubhouse with Geoff, 82 – certainly not old Geoff – bringing up the rear. Inside, the secretary welcomed us in, sat us down with a cup of tea and freshly made scones served by smiling young waitresses and regaled us with the tale of this nomadic club's existence. Started by a band of pioneers in 1902, the club is now settled in its fourth incarnation in a fold of the farmlands to the east of Galway City. Rolling through stands of pine, it's the type of course for which rural Ireland is famous; easy on the eye, yet devilish in the detail. Not long by today's standards at 5,859 metres off the back tees, it rewards the straight hitters with an aversion to trees. At e25 for a day – e20 per head for golfing societies – on a well-manicured delight of a course, it's a bargain.

And there's the silver lining on the cloud of the global financial crisis for golfers who make the trip to the Republic at present. With visitors – particularly the Americans – in short supply, prices have been driven down to more realistic levels. Green fees are in many places up to 50 per cent cheaper than they were before the crash in 2008, making golf in Ireland an even more welcoming experience.

What's enticing also is the range of courses that have been built in recent years to take visitors into parts of Ireland – and Northern Ireland – that many tourists simply pass through. Both countries are now using their inland lakes as attractions in their own right. In Co. Fermanagh, just over the border, Sir Nick Faldo has built what is considered to be one of the best new inland courses in Europe on the shores of Lough Erne. It's a heavenly slice of lakeside territory that ought to be a "shoo-in" for a future Ryder Cup, fronting a five-star hotel that ranks among the best in the country. Golfers arriving by flying boat onto the picturesque lough that adds the adventure to some of the course's best holes is not unheard of.

Back over the border in Co. Athlone, fellow professional Christy O'Connor has also done a sterling job at Glasson, where owners Tom and Breda Reid have turned their land on the shores of Lough Ree into a four-star golf resort. After a swift transfer along the N6 from the ferry port at Dublin to the heart of Ireland, we sank a couple of pints in the local pub before booking into the Glasson hotel for a spectacular sunset over the lough. The next morning, a group highly refreshed in more ways than one tackled the front nine holes which curled up and over a hillside before descending down to the lough side. The signature par three over an inlet with beds of reeds on either side is one of those golf holes you dream of playing but which shreds your nerves as you step on to the tee.

This is a venue that also rewards an overnight stay to catch the early morning mist that soon burns away to reveal the stunning outlook down across the green acres of the course to the lough. If time allows, a boat trip can be taken across the water to Athlone town and Sean's Bar, Ireland's oldest pub according to Guinness World Records.

Head further west along the N6 and you are drawn inexorably to Galway City itself. Renowned, justifiably, as a party town, it never disappoints, whether you are there to soak up the atmosphere of its music-themed bars, the bustle of its busy seafood restaurants or just take in the history of one of Ireland's oldest gateways. Even the bar of the modern Radisson Hotel on the edge of the town centre was hoaching, with revellers lapping up a young and talented pianist/singer belting out Elton John classics. Late-night revelries apart, my favourite moment was an early Sunday morning jog through a deserted town and along the sunlit banks of the River Corrib to the Spanish Arch, the old entrance to the walled town. The Spanish traders who moored here may be long gone but they appear to have left behind their work hard/party late attitude in Ireland's fastest-growing city.

Later that day, in uncommonly Mediterranean-style weather that the Spaniards would have recognised, our creaking band of golfers took on another Christy O'Connor creation in the form of the Galway Bay resort at Oranmore, a few miles down the coast. Golfers in the west of Ireland usually expect horizontal rain and hurricane-force winds as par for the course. We enjoyed a high-quality links with not a breath of wind to bother us and a succession of spectacular waterside holes lapped by a milky sea. It's not always like this, the club secretary assured us, but Steve, one of our party and perhaps still in the recovery phase from the night before, begged to differ, explaining that it that didn't really matter anyway.

"This is God's own country," he said, not for the first time. At that moment in time, it was difficult to disagree.