In Volume 1 of The Confidential Guide to Golf Courses, Tom Doak published that.

“When I first visited Portsalon on my tour of Ireland in 1983, on the basis of a single line in Bernard Darwin’s opus, it looked as though it had been abandoned, with sand blown up on a couple of fairways to the point that I couldn’t really sort out the routing. Pat Ruddy came at the dawn of the new century to ensure it would not be taken back by the environmental lobby, and did a fine job extending the course, though in the push to get it up to “respectable” length there are a lot of parallel holes at the far end. The par-4 2^nd playing across the mouth of a small burn would be a standout anywhere.”

Portsalon received a score of 6 out of 10 from Tom Doak.