Eddie Hackett

Eddie Hackett (1910–1996) was an Irish golf course architect. Eddie Hackett was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1910. As a boy he suffered from tuberculosis, the effects of which left him without the strength or stamina to play active sports. He began playing golf with his father, and as a teenager got a job at his hometown Royal Dublin Golf Club. By the 1930s he had worked his way up as a golf professional, making clubs and competing in tournaments. In 1939 became the head golf professional at Portmarnock Golf Club.

Unlike the better-known of Hackett's contemporary golf course architects like Pete Dye and Robert Trent Jones, who commonly move tons of soil to create their courses, Hackett worked like the architects of a bygone era, laying out a course on the land as he found it. As Hackett himself said, "I find that nature is the best architect . . . I try to dress up what the Good Lord provides."

While his designs show his appreciation of the classic Scottish links where he refined his game, his own designs rarely include the forced carries or the blind shots sometimes found on older links such as Carnoustie or Royal Troon.

The majority of Hackett's courses are true links courses, defined by having been built on rolling, sandy ground adjacent to the sea, with native fescue grasses and few if any trees. This linksland (so named because it "links" the fertile, arable soil inland with the sea) is ill-suited for farming or commercial use, and it was on linksland that the game of golf was developed over 500 years. Hackett also designed or revised a handful of parkland courses (inland, built on soil and frequently wooded.)

Below is a partial list of courses which Eddie Hackett designed or modified.

Ashford Castle
Ardee
Athenry*
Ballinrobe Golf Club
Ballyliffin Golf Club
Beaverstown Golf Club

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