With the global economy on the brink of collapse in 2007, many golf courses barely hung on. For Carne Golf Links, the canny timing of its expansion – and an experts payments provider in Elavon – has helped it weather economic storms.
And any golf course that was in the midst of a major construction project seemed doomed. Carne Golf Links were a little fortunate that the construction phase of their new nine holes had yet to actually begin, but it wasn’t long until sod was turned and it has since become one of the great success stories of modern Irish golf. You need look no further than the rugged links on Ireland’s western reaches to see exactly what can be possible with the vision to match the stunning landscape.
Originally opened in 1992 and designed by the late Eddie Hackett, the vision of creating an additional nine holes that would be coupled with the most scenic and spectacular of the existing 18 to form a new course that would eventually be called the Wild Atlantic Dunes began to come to fruition in the mid-noughties.
Hackett was a firm believer in allowing nature to dictate and the setting amidst some of the most impressive dune-scape on the western shore meant that spectacular views were almost a given. But creating a golf course to match the views is a different challenge altogether and this is where the true genius of Hackett and later, Ally McIntosh, can be seen.
The new nine holes – the Kilmore nine – actually opened in 2013, constructed for a total of around €200,000, requiring just a digger and a dumper for the majority of the construction and the result is one of the most visually stunning, challenging and incredibly fun golf courses on an island that boasts way more than its fair share.
It’s no surprise that anybody who plays it is desperate to return.
“We’ve always been heavily reliant on the overseas market,” said Carne general manager Fiona Togher, who took up the role in 2016 and was the recipient of the Golf Course Manager of the Year award by the Irish Golf Tour Operator Association last year, “but we’ve increased our visitors by over 600 percent in the eight years that I’ve been here. There’s been a huge increase in North American visitors, but also from the continent, so Italy, France, Portugal and Scandinavia and that’s largely down to direct marketing.
“The UK market has also increased, and, through Covid, we’ve seen a huge increase in the domestic market as well because of staycations. And once anybody has been here once, they tend to come back again, so we’re not as reliant on the overseas market as we once were.”
Carne is rather unique in that the Golf Links itself only has international members, although Belmullet Golf Club, which is due to celebrate its centenary year in 2025, moved to Carne shortly after it had opened and use it as their base.
As such, with online bookings and travel agents providing the lion’s share of the financial inflow, having a trustworthy and reliable payments provider is crucial to the survival of Carne and Elavon is exactly that.
“We obviously have the capability and functionality to take online payments and access to the tee sheet through the website,” says Togher, “but we still deal a lot with people in person. Almost all of the tour operators make their bookings via email and make payments over the phone, and then a percentage of direct bookings are made online, but many others come via email as well.
“Going fully automated is always an option, but 80 percent of people still prefer to deal with you directly, so you need to have that functionality there.”
What makes Elavon the ideal payments solution for Carne is the customer service which Togher feels is second to none.
“Elavon technical support team are excellent and are very reactive to any questions we have ever had. We use them for all of our financials from online bookings to the card terminals in the bar, restaurant and pro shop.
“The technology is extremely reliable and safe and, when an issue does arise, their customer support is second to none so it’s rarely an issue for long.”
For any business, turning electronic payments into hard currency in the company accounts can be crucial, and with Elavon, it’s next day settlement.
“The transactions are very fast to process too,” says Togher, “so a sale on the Thursday will be in the account on Friday and a sale on Friday will be in the account on Monday. That’s great for cash flow, it gives us great control in the back office.”
The increase in traffic through the doors and the testimonials from those who’ve played the courses have paved the way for the next stage in Carne’s development, because the biggest barrier to the course at present is the lack of suitable accommodation for the guests.
“We’ve just had a major upgrade of our facilities and spent a lot of money on the golf course, so the next major project is on-site accommodation,” Togher explains. “We’re planning to build some high-end links cottages on site and we’re just at the design stage of that at the moment.
“We need to do environmental impact assessments and all that, so we’re probably looking at 18 months just to get to planning application stage, and it’ll be another couple of years after that before they’d be delivered.
“But it’s the biggest barrier to growing our visitor numbers. We have three very good hotels in Belmullet, but they do a lot of weddings in the summer and that’s the bread and butter for most Irish hotels. So, when we’re at our busiest, we just can’t accommodate people in Belmullet so we need to send them to Ballina or Westport.
“And of course many hotels have been taken away from tourism accommodation, so we could probably have grown to around 20,000 visitor rounds per annum because the demand is certainly there.”
When the accommodation project is finally delivered and available to book online, there will be a separate booking engine so being able to link all payments together for the ease of both the customer and the business will be crucial and Elavon make it easy to transfer between sites and bundle everything together.
Hosting the Irish PGA Championship for three successive years from 2021-2023, and recently holding another well-supported Irish PGA Pro-Am, business is booming and, according to Togher, the heavy traffic through the pro shop, bar and restaurant were all catered for with ease and no hitches.
And since Carne is operated by Erris Tourism, which in turn is owned by the people of Belmullet, the fruits of the business directly feed into the local economy alongside the indirect income which the additional local businesses enjoy as a result of the 15,000 plus visitors.
And with the Open Championship returning to Irish shores in 2025, there is sure to be a ‘knock on effect’ to all of the island’s top links courses, meaning that there are no signs of business slowing down anytime soon.
Elavon Financial Services DAC. Registered in Ireland Number 418442. Registered Office: Block F1, Cherrywood Business Park, Dublin 18, D18 W2X7, Ireland. Elavon Financial Services DAC, trading as Elavon Merchant Services, is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland.
