Most college football road trips involve a parking lot, a folding table and a cooler of questionable beer. The 2027 season opener comes with an upgrade: two days of Irish links golf, a beachfront hotel, and a stadium full of Panthers and Badgers fans in Dublin. If you're going to fly across the Atlantic for a football game, you should probably bring your clubs. Randy Tantlinger is making sure of it.

The Game

Pitt and Wisconsin open the 2027 season on Saturday, August 28, at Aviva Stadium in Dublin in the Aer Lingus College Football Classic. It's the sixth straight year college football has kicked off its season in Dublin. Pitt is the designated home team.

Both programs have history abroad. Pitt last played outside the U.S. in December 1989, when it beat Rutgers 46-29 at Lansdowne Road, the old stadium that stood where Aviva Stadium is now. Wisconsin's only other international game was a 41-20 win over Michigan State in Tokyo in 1993. Pitt leads the all-time series 3-0, but those three wins all came before 1968, so Badgers fans can safely call that ancient history.

Meet Tank

Randy "Tank" Tantlinger played football at Pitt in the 1980s, and for more than 20 years he has been traveling to Ireland, filming his TV show and taking golfers along for the ride. His Golfin' Around TV show airs Sundays at 9:30am on MASN, which reaches about 7 million households in six states. The Golfin' Around Radio Hour runs Saturday mornings at 10am in spring and summer on Fox Sports Wheeling-Pittsburgh, and it's also available as an iHeart podcast. He also publishes Golfin' Around Magazine and runs Team USA Golf Events, the amateur championships that send American golfers overseas to take on the Scots and the Irish.

I have played Ireland with Randy. The man knows every starter, every publican and every shortcut in north County Dublin. When he says he has friends in Dublin waiting to show you Irish hospitality, believe him.

The Golf

Randy has two days of golf lined up before the game, and you can play one or both. Former Pitt and Wisconsin players are expected to join the group, so bring your old team stories and be ready to hear theirs.

Each day includes:

  • 18 holes of golf
  • Transportation to and from the course, with pickup and drop-off at an assigned spot in downtown Dublin, clubs included
  • A souvenir golf gift

Rental clubs are available at the courses if you'd rather not haul your sticks across the Atlantic. Just ask after you register.

Thursday, August 26: Jameson Golf Links ($450)

Jameson Golf Links sits at Portmarnock Resort on the old Jameson family estate, and yes, that Jameson. In the 1850s, John Jameson built his own private golf course on this ground for friends and family visiting from Scotland, and three members of the family, including John, are buried in the old graveyard to the right of the first hole. Try not to hook it in there. It feels disrespectful.

The modern course opened in 1995 as a Bernhard Langer design and spreads across 203 acres of dunes. In 2023, architect Jeff Lynch of (re)GOLF led a renovation that added five new greens and four new tees, raising much of the back nine up into the dunes. It was relaunched as Jameson Golf Links that fall. From those new tees, you look out over the Velvet Strand beach, the Dublin skyline and Ireland's Eye, the uninhabited island you flew over on your way into Dublin Airport.

The course has hosted the Ladies Irish Open twice and a Challenge Tour event in 2021, so it can handle real golf. I played it on our Team USA trip, and it's the complete package: pot bunkers, firm fescue, fast greens and a stiff breeze off the Irish Sea. Afterward, head to the resort's Jameson Bar, which picked up a national award as a hotel whiskey bar. It would be rude to play Jameson Golf Links and not have a Jameson.

Friday, August 27: Corballis Links ($180)

Do not let the scorecard fool you. Corballis is a par 66 that plays about 5,000 yards from the back tees, and on paper it looks like a birdie buffet. Then the wind shows up.

Golf has been played on this ground in Donabate since 1906, when employees of a nearby hospital laid out the first holes. It has been through several names and several owners, opened to the public in 1971, and became Corballis Links in 2004. Ron Kirby, who helped build the Old Head of Kinsale, was then brought in to create a new stretch of seaside holes from the 4th to the 7th, and those holes are the heart of the course today. It bills itself as Ireland's only public pay-and-play links, and it sits right next door to The Island Golf Club.

The highlights:

  • Seven par 3s, including a 103-yard 6th hole played from a slightly raised tee toward the sea. It's a wedge, until it isn't.
  • Driveable par 4s that tempt you into blind hero shots
  • The 15th and 16th share one giant fairway, the same way the 1st and 18th do on the Old Course at St. Andrews
  • Views across the water to Lambay Island, which is home to a colony of wallabies. You read that right. Wallabies. In Ireland.

Corballis also produced one of my favorite stories from our Team USA trip. On a par 3 at 9am, a friend of mine met a fully tattooed Dublin tattoo shop owner who asked to play through. Twenty-four hours and three pints later, my friend had his family tattoo. I can't promise the same experience, but Corballis does have a way of making things happen.

Where to Stay: White Sands Hotel

Randy recommends the White Sands Hotel in Portmarnock, and so do I. It's where we stayed on the Team USA trip. The family-run hotel sits on the Coast Road right across from the Velvet Strand, a five-mile Blue Flag beach, and many rooms look straight out over the Irish Sea. Downstairs, the Oasis Bar & Grill is a proper Irish pub with a proper pint of Guinness.

The location is hard to beat for this trip. Dublin Airport is about 15 to 20 minutes away. Jameson Golf Links is just down the beach, and you can see Portmarnock Golf Club from the neighborhood. Buses and the nearby rail line get you into the city for game day without paying Dublin cab prices after a Guinness-fueled tailgate.

When you book, contact Roisin at the hotel and tell her Randy from Pittsburgh sent you. Her email is listed on Randy's registration page at usairelandgolf.com.

Staying Longer? Add More Golf

North County Dublin has some of the best concentrations of links golf anywhere in the world. If you add a day or two on either end of the trip, you're within a short drive of:

  • Portmarnock Golf Club: one of the great links in the world, host of the first Irish Open in 1927, and a club with its sights set on hosting an Open Championship
  • The Island Golf Club: next door to Corballis, founded in 1890, with some of the steepest dunes and narrowest fairways in Ireland
  • Royal Dublin: a classic links on Bull Island, closer to the city
  • Castleknock Golf Club: a parkland change of pace in west Dublin if the wind has beaten you up

Off the Course

The official Pitt and Wisconsin travel packages include a welcome event at the Guinness Storehouse, which is the right way to start any Dublin trip. Beyond that, there's plenty to fill the time around the golf:

  • Walk the Velvet Strand at sunrise and pretend you're going to take it easy that night
  • Grab seafood in the fishing villages of Howth and Malahide
  • Tour Malahide Castle, just a few minutes from the hotel
  • Save one night for Temple Bar, but only one. Your liver and your wallet will thank you.

On Saturday, 48,000 fans pack Aviva Stadium, and the atmosphere is part American tailgate, part Irish rugby match, and all party.

How to Get Game Tickets

Randy's golf days are sold separately from game tickets. Right now, tickets are only available through the official travel and hospitality packages at Pitt2Ireland.com and Badgers2Ireland.com. Standalone tickets go on sale to U.S. fans through each school's ticket office in early 2027.

Want More? St. Andrews and Team USA

If one golf trip isn't enough, Randy is also putting together a trip to St. Andrews, Scotland, the week after the game. Contact him through usairelandgolf.com for details.

If you'd rather earn your way overseas, Team USA Golf Events holds its 2027 championships February 20-28 in Clay County, Florida, in Northeast Florida. Amateurs of all skill levels can play, no USGA GHIN handicap is required, and scoring uses the Modified Peoria system. Top finishers earn a trip to St. Andrews as a member of Team USA.

How to Book

Register for the Dublin golf days at www.usairelandgolf.com. For qualifiers, the Florida championships and the Ireland and Scotland trips, visit www.teamusagolfevents.com.

Bring your rain gear, your team colors and a strong liver. See you in Dublin.