Tee off with Padraig

If you're a golfer and planning on traveling in southwestern Ireland on May 14, here's an opportunity. County Limerick's five-star castle hotel, Adare Manor, is hosting the Irish Open May 15-18, and Irish golfer Padraig Harrington is returning to defend his title on the Robert Trent Jones Sr.-designed parkland course. Purchase a ticket to the event online prior to May 10, and you're automatically entered into a draw to play alongside Harrington in the Irish Open Pro-Am on Wednesday, May 14. Fine print: Men must have a certified GUI handicap of 24 or below; women 36 or below. Tickets for the event begin at 25 Euros; ages 15 and younger are free when accompanied by an adult.

If playing this course is too rich for your blood, consider the adjacent, but independent (despite its name) and far less expensive Adare Manor Golf Club, which wraps around ruins of a 13th-century castle, 15th-century Franciscan priory and church cemetery and provides views of another priory-turned-school and Adare Manor itself. Not too shabby.