Upon the request of many readers over the years, Golf Guides USA is expanding our horizons with trips around the world to find some of the best golf and report back.  This is Ireland.

Ballybunion Old, a sight to behold.

Follow Brett on twitter, @BrettCyrgalis

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By BRETT CYRGALIS
Managing Editor

Here’s the question you inevitably get when telling people you’ve returned from Ireland:

“How was the weather?”

Before we even left, I caught a sideways glance from a friend who is a veteran of trips to the Emerald Isle:

“Be sure to pack your sunscreen,” he said, laughing.

The golf courses are often the main event on trips like these, and this one was no different.  We would make the trek from the western shores down south and over to the east, seeing Lahinch, Ballybunion, Waterville and Old Head, before a purely tourist visit to Dublin.  All the courses were spectacular in their own different way, as were the attendant cities.  And the memories are inexorably linked to the weather under which each was seen.

But I am a golfer who embraces the history, and revels in the natural way the game began.  If a rain comes, you play through it.  If there is no wind, then it’s just a little less interesting and far less enjoyable.

A side street in the town of Lahinch.

So when my wife and I landed at Shannon Airport for our two-person sojourn in late-July of 2016, we collected our bags, walked through the sliding doors and — you know what? — we were hit with the sweetest air we’ve ever tasted.  Compared to the triple-digit slog we left back in New York, the mid-60s with a slight fog was refreshing.  As we went to pick up the rental car, a very slight rain began to fall.  We were fine with it.

When the guy handed me the keys, pointed me in a general direction and said the car was a gray “Skoa” — a brand I had never heard of — well, that’s when we started to get nervous laughter.  As I got in the strange right-side driver’s door, I found the ignition and realized it was also a hybrid, often sounding like the motor was off while the car was actually running.  I became imminently thankful that I booked it far enough in advance to make sure it was at least an automatic transmission.  Later, I would also be imminently thankful that I paid for the GPS device that I mounted on the dashboard.  Without that navigating woman with a lilting British accent, we might still be lost in the countryside making friends with sheep.

A look down at the links of Ballybunion Old.

Instead, as we started the one-hour drive up north to Lahinch, the clouds parted for just a moment and a ray of sunshine quickly popped through.  It was clearly going to be a trip that had a little bit of everything.