What can be better than visting a course you have read great things about and then finding the reality is even more impressive?

Having played most of the Open rota courses and around 60 of the Golf Monthly Top 100, I found it hard to believe that anywhere could be as spectacular as Turnberry, as difficult as Carnoustie and as interesting as Sandwich all in one. For my money, (and that was an eye-watering £155 as a Summer visitor), Royal County Down has it all and is by a margin the best course in the UK.

With the possible exception of the 17th, no pushover, but strangely out of keeping with the others on the course, every hole is a memorable links experience and a challenge in its own right. Huge sand dunes, where the grass is both long and thick, line the fairways and on holes 2, 9 and 11 you are required to launch a blind drive high over one. To have any hope of making par you must keep your tee shots on the fairway, otherwise you will be hacking out, if you find your ball at all.

The difficulty doesn't end there though. Unlike many parkland courses, the bunkers, which are famous for being small, deep and edged with long tufty grass, are genuine hazards. The greens, with their fast and true putting surfaces, are often set on plateaus and require approach shots to be carefully planned and perfectly executed.

If this description sounds more like pain rather than pleasure, the compensations are great. While demanding, the course rewards good striking and clear thinking and with fast running fairways provides the imaginative golfer a variety of shot options. Each individual hole merits an essay of its own, but my personal favourites were the second requiring a precise mid-iron approach between sand hills to a long narrow green, the long third, where you tee off virtually on the beach and the demanding eighth with its green set high up on the horizon. Other critics rank the short fourth, dog-legged fifth and sixth, scenic ninth and curving thirteenth as world class classics.

I have left to last, what many regard to be the main attraction of this superb Northern Irish links - the stunning beauty of its setting. With the mountains of Mourne overlooking the course and the sea alongside, there can be no more scenic place to play, whether you are anywhere near your handicap or not.

As architect Tom Doak notes in his "Confidential Guide to Golf Courses", Royal County Down has everything you could want - beauty as well as brains.