In the quaint little clubhouse that is home to Castlecomer Golf Club, there are photos adorning a wall that are more reminiscent of an expedition into the jungle in deepest Africa, writes Philip Reid

They comprise images of men with various implements and tools hacking through limbs of trees and bushes and whatever else constitutes dense scrubland and woodland.

Upon inquiry, it transpires the men are not exotic explorers but rather members of the local hurling club rooting out ash from nearby hilly terrain before the land was used to expand the course.

Those simple photographs vividly portray what has been achieved. For years, those golfing folk associated with the club had held dreams of extending their lovely nine-hole course into an 18-hole layout and, for years, much of the talk was conducted with a neighbouring landowner who eventually decided his farm would remain a farm and, so, forced the golfers to accept their fate and reluctantly look elsewhere.

Their search didn't take them too far away, and was to prove that those who dream the most are the ones mostly rewarded. The land above the old course was boggy woodland that once belonged to the old Wandesforde estate - but then in the hands of Coillte - but was so wild that, until the decision was forced on them, nobody seriously considered it suitable for the extension of the course.

When Pat Ruddy designed the original nine-hole course, legend has it he pulled into the grounds in his old car, proceeded to pitch a tent in the field, and spent the best part of five days, morning to night, working out the best route for the layout. It was the first course design Ruddy - who has since proved himself one of the top course architects - created, and it was natural Castlecomer would go back to the same source for the expansion.

With the vision that only a course architect can possess, Ruddy revisited Castlecomer some 25 years after creating the original layout and, after battling his way through briars and tree limbs, informed the club that, yes, it was possible to use what Michael Fogarty, a member of the club's development committee, described as "complete jungle" to create the additional holes. Fanning Construction, one of the top course constructors in the country, was brought in to make real the imaginations of Ruddy.

In truth, what has evolved is a wonderful course with holes constructed through trees that have been around for over a century, so giving it a feel of a course that is older than it really is.

"We got a course that was 100 years old," claimed Fogarty. In all, there are effectively 13 new holes as a number of the old ones were realigned or even discarded - but the end product, for the cost of just €2.5 million, is a course that will excite and test golfers of all abilities.

"Overall," stated Martin Fitzpatrick, the chairman of the finance committee, "we got lucky. It would take 40 years for a new course to get to where we are now but, because of the land we finished up working with, we have leapfrogged over many of the newer developments. It has all worked out wonderfully."

Out by the second hole, I was introduced to the course superintendent, Ollie Houlihan, an old face in a new setting. During the 1999 Ryder Cup match at Brookline, where he spent six years as the assistant head greenkeeper, I had spoken briefly to Houlihan. Now, the Castlecomer native has returned to his roots and, talking boldly, reckoned the course had the potential to be rated "in the top five (parkland) courses in the country".

The course at Castlecomer is breathtaking, especially for what has been achieved on the doorstep of the Co Kilkenny town with the sort of finance that the club had available. The new fairways are all sand-based - to a depth of nine inches - and, apart from the trees, other features such as that on the 11th where you play the tee-shot between two cliff faces add tremendous character.

The course is a par 72 of 6,175 metres off the back tees that starts off with a par five, a slight dogleg that works its way uphill to a green protected by bunkers that slopes from back-to-front. The hole offers a gentle enough opening, but it doesn't take long for the course to really bite.

The fourth hole is a par four of 446 metres known as Van Diemen's. All of the holes on the course have names, and the source of this one comes from a family who in days gone by were relocated here from the town which, for them, was the equivalent of a transportation order.

Anyway, the fourth hole is one for the brave, with out-of-bounds down the right and trees down the left and, for good measure, a huge fairway bunker on the right while a bunker in front of the green rules out any pretension you can run the ball onto the putting surface. This is a hole that requires course management, yet won't leave you dispirited so soon into your round.

Castlecomer's original home was on rented pasture land outside the town and, on that nondescript course, there was a hole known as Abyssinia, so called because the founding of the club in 1935 coincided with a war in that land, now Ethiopia. The name has been reborn because the par-three seventh bares an uncanny resemblance to the old hole.

All in all, what has been created at Caslecomer is a credit to everyone. There are holes full of character and none the same, and the tee shot off the elevated 13th must be one of the most invigorating on any course.

"There's always been an ethos in this club that golf should be affordable," remarked Fitzpatrick, and that is the way it is going to stay with green fees for visitors of €40. It is money well spent.

Indeed, Castlecomer Golf Club - who introduced a levy in addition to fundraising for the bulk of the cost of upgrading - has come a long way from the early days when an old bus, now buried under the 10th tee, was used as a clubhouse when the club moved to this site in the mid-1970s.