The Royal Dublin Golf Club, Golf course on Bull Island, Dublin, Ireland

The Royal Dublin Golf Club is an 18-hole links course on Bull Island, a narrow strip of coastal land in Dublin Bay, Ireland. The holes run across naturally rolling ground shaped by sand dunes, with bunkers and greens fully exposed to the sea wind.

The club was founded in May 1885 at a meeting on Grafton Street, led by Scottish banker John Lumsden, and first played near the Magazine Fort in Phoenix Park. It moved to Sutton after a year, then to North Bull Island in 1889, and received its royal designation in 1891. During the First World War the military used the links as a rifle and artillery range; after the war Harry Colt redesigned the course, and the clubhouse burned down in 1943.

The course sits within a nature reserve, and golfers regularly encounter coastal birds and wildlife between holes. This closeness to nature shapes the experience in a way that sets it apart from an ordinary course.

The course is on Bull Island and easy to reach from central Dublin, but advance booking is required. Coastal weather changes quickly here, so layered clothing and waterproof gear are worth bringing regardless of the forecast.

The club owns all 65 hectares of its links on Bull Island, while the rest of the island, including the Wooden Bridge and the Bull Wall, belongs to the city; those structures had previously belonged to Dublin Port. The island itself is a sand bank that formed after a sea wall was built three kilometres offshore, and it is still growing.