Royal County Down Golf Club is a golf club located in Newcastle, County Down in Northern Ireland. It opened 131 years ago on 23 March 1889 and is one of the oldest golf clubs in Ireland. It has two 18-hole links courses, the Championship Course and the Annesley Links.
The first course at County Down was built by Old Tom Morris, hired for the sum of four guineas to build a championship course. 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 Royal County Down Golf Club occupy. George Combe began the remodelling of the course in 1900 and 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.
