The coast road southbound out of Wicklow town takes you on a short journey that has a most unexpected yet pleasant end for, just over three kilometres outside, there is a golf club—Blainroe—which has been transformed.

Different professions employ different means to achieve an end: for a plastic surgeon, the process of nipping and tucking is done by a scalpel; for a diamond cutter, the rough edges are taken off a gemstone by intricate machines. Yet, in his own way, a golf course architect—invariably using heavy machinery as his main tool of the trade—can attain equally remarkable results.

And, at Blainroe Golf Club, Martin Hawtree, part of a distinguished golfing family who left their imprint over most parts of continental Europe as well as Britain and Ireland in the 20th century, has fashioned something quite spectacular. The design philosophy of Hawtree, as he puts it himself, is "unashamedly rooted in the history and traditions of the game."