With 20 courses packed into one of Ireland's smallest counties, Wicklow offers a breadth of golf that most destinations can only envy. But not all 20 are equal. Here are the five that visiting golfers absolutely should not miss — ranked honestly, with reasons.
County Wicklow earned its title as the Garden of Ireland long before anyone built a golf course here, but the two have become inseparable. The same glacial geography that carved the Wicklow Mountains and laid down the sandy soils of the east coast also provided the raw material for some of Ireland's finest golf — championship parkland in deep wooded valleys, heathland courses with mountain views, links fairways beside the Irish Sea.
We've played every course in the county and argued at length about this ranking. What follows is our honest assessment for 2026: the five courses that offer the best combination of design quality, playing experience, condition and overall value. Your own ranking will depend on what you're looking for — but these five are the ones every visitor to Wicklow golf should try to play.
There is no serious debate about first place. Druids Glen — designed by Pat Ruddy and Tom Craddock, opened 1995 — is the finest golf course in County Wicklow by a clear margin, and one of the great parkland courses in all of Ireland. It hosted the Irish Open four consecutive times between 1996 and 1999, during which Jesper Parnevik, Colin Montgomerie, Darren Clarke and Sergio Garcia all lifted the trophy on these fairways. That is as strong a championship pedigree as any parkland course in the country.
The course occupies a heavily wooded valley in the Wicklow Hills between Newtownmountkennedy and Ashford, with mature deciduous trees framing almost every hole. The routing is clever, the bunkering strategic without being punitive, and the greens are consistently among the finest in Ireland. The par-3 holes are particularly good — especially the 12th, where a tee shot over water to a peninsula green asks a very straightforward question in the most pressurised way possible.
Druids Glen is also a 5-star resort, which means the broader experience — the hotel, the spa, the clubhouse food — matches the quality of the golf. If you're making a weekend of it, staying on-site and playing both Druids Glen and the adjacent Druids Heath course is one of the better two-day golf itineraries in Ireland.
The East Course at Powerscourt — designed by Peter McEvoy, opened 1996 — occupies one of the most spectacular settings of any golf course in Ireland. The course runs through the Powerscourt Estate in Enniskerry, with the Palladian mansion visible from several holes, the Wicklow Mountains providing a constant backdrop, and the estate's mature parkland trees giving each hole its own distinct character.
McEvoy's design is intelligent and measured — there is nothing gimmicky here. The routing uses the natural contours of the estate land to create a course that feels both natural and considered. The par-5s offer genuine birdie opportunities for long hitters, while the mid-iron par-3s demand precision over power. The condition is consistently excellent; the estate setting means Powerscourt attracts a clientele that expects high standards, and the club delivers them.
The additional benefit of playing Powerscourt East is access to the wider estate. Finish your round and walk through the 47-acre formal gardens — rated among the world's finest by National Geographic — before lunch in the Avoca café in the house. There are very few golf courses anywhere where the 19th hole is that good.
The West Course (also on the estate, designed by David McLay Kidd) is worth playing if you have the time — it offers a more open, exposed feel on the upper slopes of the estate — but the East Course is the one to prioritise.
If Druids Glen is the obvious answer and Powerscourt the scenic spectacle, Woodenbridge is the one that surprises people. Set in the Vale of Avoca where the Avonmore and Avonbeg rivers meet, Woodenbridge Golf Club plays through one of the most naturally beautiful valleys in Wicklow — lush, sheltered, with the river visible from multiple holes and mature broadleaf trees giving the course an intimate, enclosed feel quite different from the exposed grandeur of the coast or mountains.
The course itself is a classic Irish parkland — not a championship test in the Druids Glen sense, but a well-designed, pleasantly challenging round that rewards straight hitting and rewards local knowledge. The greens are well maintained; the fairways are generous without being dull. And crucially, Woodenbridge is genuinely friendly to visiting golfers — there is no sense of being an outsider here.
The value is significant too. Green fees at Woodenbridge are among the most reasonable of any quality course in Wicklow, and the adjacent Woodenbridge Hotel makes it an easy overnight pairing. After your round, the Vale of Avoca — immortalised by Thomas Moore's poem — is a five-minute walk from the clubhouse.
Often overlooked by visitors who come to Druids Glen for the main course, Druids Heath — also designed by Pat Ruddy, opened 2003 — deserves to be ranked in its own right. Where Druids Glen is wooded, tree-lined parkland, Druids Heath is an open heathland course with a quite different character: broader fairways, natural rough of gorse and heather, and a more exposed, links-like feel despite being inland.
Ruddy designed Druids Heath with the specific intention of creating a heathland course in the style of the great Surrey and Berkshire heaths — Sunningdale, Walton Heath — and the result is convincing. The bunkering is more severe than on the main course, the rough more punishing, and the course rewards a lower, more controlled game. Playing both courses back-to-back over two days is one of the best contrasts in Irish golf.
Wicklow has surprisingly few true links courses — the coastline here is dominated by cliffs and beach rather than the natural dune systems that produce links golf — which makes Arklow Golf Links all the more valuable. Founded in 1927, the course sits on natural linksland beside the Irish Sea on the south Wicklow coast, with the characteristic features of good links golf: turf that allows the ball to run, greens that firm up in summer, and a wind that changes the character of every hole depending on direction.
Arklow is not a long course by modern standards, but length is not the point. The pleasure of Arklow is in its authenticity — a proper seaside links that has changed relatively little in a century, open to visitors without the formality and green fee of a top resort. No handicap certificate is required. The clubhouse is welcoming; the post-round pint is well earned.
For golfers who want to understand what Wicklow's coastline looked like before the resort developments arrived, Arklow is the answer. It's also a genuinely fun test of links golf for all levels — the kind of course where a good score requires intelligence rather than distance, and where a poorly judged approach can roll 30 yards past the pin on a firm summer day.
No ranking of Wicklow golf in 2026 would be complete without acknowledging what is about to arrive. The former European Club — Pat Ruddy's acclaimed 20-hole links overlooking the Irish Sea at Brittas Bay, one of Ireland's most discussed golf courses — has been sold, renamed Brittas Bay Club, and handed to world-renowned architect Kyle Phillips (Kingsbarns, Dundonald) for a comprehensive redesign funded by a €45m investment. The new 18-hole course is expected to open in Spring 2027.
When it does, it will almost certainly change this ranking. A Kyle Phillips links on the Wicklow coast, with views of the Irish Sea from every hole, a five-tee routing from 5,000 to 7,350 yards, and the full financial weight of a serious private investment behind it — this has the potential to be one of the genuinely great links courses in Ireland. Watch this space.
Read our full article on Brittas Bay Club 2027