Captains’ Dinner 23rd November

The Captains’ Dinner on Saturday was a night to remember. From the moment guests arrived, the evening was up and running. A wine reception at 6:30 pm set the tone perfectly, with members and guests mingling , glasses clinking and banter filling the air.

By 7:30 pm, everyone was seated for a sumptuous meal, expertly prepared by Claudia and her staff and beautifully presented. The room was alive with noisy conversation and good cheer as the courses flowed seamlessly, a testament to the meticulous planning behind the event.

The speeches, always a highlight, were refreshingly concise yet heartfelt. Both Men’s Captain John and Lady Captain Sharon delivered their addresses with poise and warmth, thanking all the right people who had contributed to a fantastic year. The room rang with applause as the captains reminisced on their year in office and acknowledged the achievements and contributions of members, ground staff and house staff, perfectly capturing the spirit of the club.

Then came the music, and what a show it was. A four-piece rock and roll band, fronted by a stunning female vocalist with a voice to match her presence, took to the stage. They wasted no time in getting everyone onto the dance floor -indeed I think the ladies were ready and waiting on the floor for them to start- with a mix of classics and crowd-pleasers that kept the energy high well into the night. The clubhouse rocked with dancing, singing, and pure delight.

As the night drew to a close, it was clear that this Captains’ Dinner was more than just an evening—it was a meeting of members and guests who celebrated the tradition and good times that has always been associated with this event. It was the kind of night people would reminisce about for years to come, a fitting tribute to a remarkable year at Castleknock Golf Club.

Photos HERE

New Scorecard – Local Rules on back

Hole in One

What a remarkable achievement!!

In the Super Hamper competition today, John Hiney had his third Hole in One of the year. His Ace was on the 18th hole. Well done John and you’ve still plenty to make it a four-timer!

16 Nov 2024

Country Cousins

2024 Matchplay Finals.

Club Championship: Winner: Ian O’Connell – Runner-up: Ruairi Kennelly

Singles Match-Play: Winner: Ciaran Moffett – Runner-up: John Rankin

Doubles Match-Play: Winners: Derek Daly & Aiden Browne – Runners-up: Eamonn Tighe & Paul Grimes

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Captains’ Charity

Senior Cup and Barton Shield 2024

The National Senior Cup finals took place at Carlow Golf Club at the end of September, where our lads delivered a series of impressive performances. They won close matches in both the quarter-finals and semi-finals, but unfortunately, despite their best efforts, were narrowly defeated in the final. It was a hard-fought battle, and though the result didn’t go our way, the players can take pride in how far they came.

The following day saw the National Barton Shield finals, also held at Carlow. The team continued to show great form, easily winning their quarter-final match. However, they were beaten in the semi-final, going down at the 21st hole, and ending their run in the competition. Fatigue played a key role, as the players had already endured three tough matches in the Senior Cup over two days and had to compete in two more matches the next day.

With a small squad, the lack of fresh players became a challenge, and the burden of playing so many games in quick succession ultimately impacted performance. Nevertheless, the team showed great spirit and fought valiantly in every match, staying competitive throughout.

Despite not clinching the titles, the players can be proud of their efforts. They represented the club with great determination, giving their all until the very end. Well done to all the players—you’ve done the club proud! With this experience, we’re sure to come back even stronger next time.

Website Stats

Notes:

Overview:

The report above provides a summary of the website’s performance metrics for August 2024. The key metrics tracked include the number of visits, pages viewed, hits, and bandwidth used.

The website does not use Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SEO is the practice of optimizing a website to improve its visibility and ranking on search engine results pages like Google, Bing, or Yahoo etc. The main goal of this website is to attract club members only.

During August the website handled traffic spikes without performance degradation even though the high bandwidth usage suggests that the site was serving heavy content, including media-rich pages (images, videos, etc.)

9,272 visits in the month without SEO is a strong indicator that the site already has a large degree of visibility, mostly through direct member traffic, referrals, or returning members. This suggests that the content or services offered are valuable and attract a dedicated golf audience.

The fact that there is traffic despite the lack of SEO also indicates that the site already has a loyal user base. This is crucial because it suggests the site offers something valuable that members are seeking out directly.

For a website with no SEO, the statistics are excellent.

Irish Close this weekend

Article on Quentin Carew

Brian Keogh, Irish Independent

Senior Cup

Castleknock Secures First North Leinster Senior Cup in a Dramatic Finale

In a day that will be remembered for its tension, drama, and extraordinary golf, Castleknock Golf Club claimed their first-ever North Leinster Senior Cup pennant. The journey to victory was anything but straightforward, as the team faced formidable opponents, challenging conditions, and a battle that stretched into the fading light of an extra 24th hole.

The day began at 10 a.m. with a heavy sea mist hanging over the links, casting an eerie calm over the course. As the mist gradually lifted, the sun made its appearance, setting the stage for a thrilling day of golf. Castleknock’s journey to the final began with a tough semi-final match-up against Royal Dublin, a team boasting in-form internationals, Hugh Foley, Jack McDonnell, Richard Knightly and Robbie Cannon.

Ian and Mark, tasked with facing Foley and McDonnell, quickly found themselves down in their matches. However, the pair refused to be overwhelmed, battling back to bring their matches to the 15th hole, showing remarkable grit and determination. Meanwhile, Quentin played with his usual control and confidence, secured a crucial victory on the 15th, putting Castleknock on the scoreboard.

The semi-final’s real drama unfolded in the matches involving James and Paul. Both golfers found themselves in titanic struggles, with neither giving an inch. As James approached the 18th hole leading 1 up, the pressure was immense. He faced a challenging 4-footer to half the hole that he sank with nerves of steel, levelling the match at 2-2. At the same time, Paul was engaged in a nail-biting battle. Having been dormie down with two holes to play, his birdie on the 17th and a win on the 18th sent his match into extra holes. Paul winning his match on the 19th hole propelled Castleknock into the final by the narrowest of margins.

There was hardly time to catch a breath or grab a quick bite before the final against Malahide began. Malahide, coming off an impressive victory over The Island, entered the final brimming with confidence and backed by a large and vocal following. However, Castleknock quickly made their mark, taking a commanding 4-1 lead after the front nine.

Mark and Quentin continued their fine form from the semi-final, each securing early wins and putting Castleknock 2-0 up. But Malahide was far from finished. They mounted a fierce comeback, with James losing his match on the 17th and Ian being narrowly defeated on the 18th, levelling the overall score 2-2.

With everything hanging in the balance, all eyes turned to Paul, whose match with Gavin O’Neill had been a battle of wills from the outset. Neither player could gain a decisive advantage, and as they stood on the final hole, Paul was 1 down. It seemed that the momentum might be slipping away, but Paul, displaying the same determination that had seen him through the semi-final, delivered an absolutely stunning putt to force extra holes.

The match extended to the 24th hole, with tension reaching its peak as the light began to fade. Paul had been on the back foot during the extra holes but pulled off some great putts to keep the match going and on the 6^th extra hole he sank a short but nerve-wracking putt, clinching the victory for Castleknock and securing the club’s first North Leinster Senior Cup pennant.

This victory is a testament to the skill, determination, and teamwork that carried Castleknock through one of the most thrilling and hard-fought competitions in recent memory. Big congratulations are also due to the managers John Newcombe and Michael Clancy as well as our ever present captains, John and Sharon.

As the sun set and the final putt dropped, Castleknock’s place in Senior Cup history was secured, and a new chapter was written for the club.

Senior Cup Semi-Final 2024 this Sunday

Barton Shield 2024

Barton Shield at Corrstown

Sunday was a perfect day for golf, with a slight morning breeze setting a picturesque scene at Corrstown for the semi-final of the Barton Shield. The match against Baltray saw our first pair, Quentin and Mark and then Paul and Ian quickly finding their rhythm and going 5 holes up early in the round. They maintained their advantage throughout, playing some super golf and ultimately secured a win on the 16th hole with a decisive 5-up finish.

In the final, our team faced the formidable home team, Corrstown. Known for their strong performances and holding the home advantage, Corrstown was expected to be a tough opponent. However, our guys were undeterred. Both pairs started strongly, winning the first hole and setting a positive tone for the match. The game remained closely contested, with our pairs maintaining a slight lead throughout. The players demonstrated exceptional composure, keeping the pressure on the home team. As the match progressed, the tension was palpable. Each hole was fiercely contested, but our team held their nerve. Their consistent play and strategic approach paid off as they secured a victory on the 17th hole, overcoming the home advantage and clinching the title.

This victory marked an incredible achievement for Castleknock, as it was their third consecutive win in the Barton Shield.

Both games at Corrstown will be remembered for the display of excellent golf and sportsmanship by all players. Our team’s triumph, marked by early leads and sustained performance, was a testament to their skill and resilience. This victory adds another proud chapter to our club’s history and sets a high bar for future competitions.

John Hiney had a hole in one on the eleventh hole today. Well done John, second hole in one this year…some going.

Vice Captain’s Day

Some Photos HERE

Interclub News 2024

Barton Shield: Castleknock qualify for quarter finals on 7th July at Balcarrick

Leinster Senior Men: Castleknock 0.5, Headford 3.5

Barton Cup: Castleknock 0.5, Killeen Castle 4.5

Junior Cup: Castleknock 1.5, Island 3.5

Pierce Purcell: Castleknock 0 Corrstown 4

Leinster 4Ball: Castleknock 4.5, Bellewstown 2.5

Mixed 4Ball: Castleknock 2.5, St Anne’s 1.5

Mixed Foursomes: Castleknock 1.5, Hollywood lakes 2.5

Result Senior Scratch Cup

What a fantastic day at the Senior Cup in Castleknock! The perfect weather and pristine course conditions set the stage for some remarkable performances. With the sun shining and the course in top-notch condition, it was a day made for low scoring, and the players certainly delivered.

Paul Coughlan teed off as the favorite, and despite being one over after three holes, he quickly turned things around. A run of six birdies in the next seven holes, followed by further birdies on the 12th and 15th, transformed an ordinary start into a brilliant 65. This gave him a narrow one-shot lead over Darren McCormack, who carded an impressive 66 with seven birdies of his own. Local talent Mark Doogue and Rian Carville tied for third with scores of 68, closely followed by Hugh Foley and Charlie Denvir at 69. Quentin Carew was on track for a great round until a disastrous 7 on the par-3 eleventh derailed his momentum. Nevertheless, the scoring was exceptional, with 16 players breaking par in the first round.

Paul continued his stellar play in the second round with a great 67, including an eagle on the 8th, giving him a total of 132 and securing the win. The battle for the runner-up position was intense, with Quentin bouncing back with a fantastic 65, including an eagle on the 16th, to join McCormack at 137. Hugh Foley’s 68 and Jack McDonnell’s 67 also brought them to a total of 137, making for a thrilling finish.

The course was in immaculate condition, thanks to John Jennings and his great ground staff. Players were high in their praise for the greens and the newly refurbished bunkers. Kudos to our new manager, Daniel Hutton, and his team in the pro shop for keeping things running smoothly. Claudia and her staff ensured everyone was well-fed and refreshed throughout the day and the presentation ceremony.

A big thank you to members involved in making the event such a success and in particular the members who sponsored the event. Without their contribution the day could not happen. So well done John Newcombe, Michael Clancy, Bernard Hudson, Anthony O’Connell, Niall Duggan and the Craven boys, Johnny and Karl.

It was a day to remember and we’re looking forward to many more days like this! .

Some photos of presentation: HERE

Senior Scratch Cup Report: Next Saturday’s Preview

Anticipation Builds for Next Saturday’s Senior Scratch Cup

As the days count down to next Saturday, excitement mounts for the upcoming Senior Scratch Cup at Castleknock golf club. With a record-breaking number of over 90 players already signed up and a limited field of 69 players set to compete, expectations are high for an exciting showcase of golfing skills.

Format and Schedule: Golf enthusiasts can look forward to a challenging 36-hole Strokeplay format, designed to push players to their limits and test their skills across the course. Two shotgun starts, scheduled for 9:30 am and 2:30 pm respectively, promise a day filled with great competition on the fairways and greens.

Distinguished Competitors: Among the confirmed participants are esteemed Irish internationals Sean Keeling, Hugh Foley, Jack McDonnell, Colin Campbell, and David Shiel, as well as our own internationals Paul Coughlan and Quentin Carew adding an extra layer of prestige to the event. Their presence ensures a fiercely competitive field and promises some exceptional displays of golfing talent.

Presentation Ceremony: Following the conclusion of play, all eyes will turn to the members lounge, where the presentation of prizes is set to take place at approximately 6:30 pm. The Competition Secretary and Men’s Captain will do the honors, recognizing the outstanding achievements of the winners and the spirit of sportsmanship that defines the Senior Scratch Cup.

Gratitude to Sponsors: As preparations reach their peak, a heartfelt thank you goes out to all the sponsors who have generously supported the event since its inception in 2018. Their continued commitment has been instrumental in making the Senior Scratch Cup a premier fixture on the golfing calendar, and their contributions are deeply appreciated by players and organizers alike.

Join Us Next Saturday: With an unparalleled lineup of players, a challenging tournament format, and a rich tradition of excellence, next Saturday’s Senior Scratch Cup promises to be an unforgettable day for golf enthusiasts and participants alike. I’ll be there ……. hope you will too

Hole in One

28/4/24

John Hiney got his first Hole in One on the Third hole today

Senior Scratch Cup

Calling all elite golfers! Compete in the Castleknock Senior Scratch Cup, a 36-hole event with a handicap limit of 1 or lower. Vie for €3000 in prizes on our challenging Dublin course. Join top players for a full day of competition and a chance to showcase your talent. Secure your spot HERE

Brophy Trophy 2024

Despite the cold and occasional rain, Paudi Lyons and John Newcombe clinched the Brophy Trophy (kindly sponsored by Lorcan Brophy) by a commanding 4 and 3 victory over Sean Quinn and Marty Cahill. The match showcased impressive skills from both teams. Despite the adverse weather conditions, the players exhibited remarkable sportsmanship throughout the game. Lyons and Newcombe’s performance was particularly noteworthy, as they managed to maintain their focus and secure a decisive win.

Presentation Photos HERE

MARK DOOGUE wins the Pat Ruddy Perpetual Trophy at West of Ireland.

Mark Doogue topped the qualifiers in the West of Ireland Championship as the cream rose to the top at a windy Rosses Point.

In a test of skill and resilience, schoolteacher Mark Doogue, emerged victorious in the face of adverse weather conditions to claim the prestigious Pat Ruddy Perpetual Trophy. Battling winds gusting up to 25 mph, Mark showcased remarkable composure and determination, ultimately securing a two-over 73 and clinching the trophy by a two-stroke margin. A delighted Mark said “It’s something I didn’t really imagine at the start of the week to be honest, but it’s only half the job. The main thing now it to put the head down tomorrow and just take it hole by hole and see where that brings me.”

This victory in the Pat Ruddy Perpetual Trophy serves as a testament to Mark’s talent and determination, setting the stage for further success in his golfing journey. The members of Castleknock eagerly look forward to his future achievements. Well done Mark.

West of Ireland Championships: Semi-Final Match Report

Jack C 2/4/24

In what was anticipated to be an epic showdown, the semi-final match between two in-form golfers, Paul Coughlan and David Brady, at the prestigious West of Ireland Championships in Rosses Point did not disappoint. The match unfolded with twists and turns, showcasing the resilience and skill of both competitors.

From the outset, Brady asserted dominance by securing victories on the 3rd, 4th, 6th, and 8th holes, while Coughlan managed to salvage one win on the 7th, leaving him trailing by three after nine. Despite some missed opportunities on the front nine, Paul showed flashes of brilliance, hinting at a potential comeback.

The back nine witnessed a remarkable shift in momentum. A determined Coughlan, shared the first three holes with Brady before launching an impressive onslaught, clinching four wins in the next five holes to seize a one-shot lead heading to the final tee. The tension escalated as both players hit great tee shots, setting the stage for a thrilling climax.

Paul played a nice wedge to the green to within 18 feet of the pin and put the pressure on Brady to get a birdie. Exhibiting nerves of steel, Brady responded with a flawless shot that tantalizingly threatened the hole, ultimately settling within gimme distance.

With the pressure mounting, Paul narrowly missed his putt, paving the way for the match to extend into extra holes. The ensuing battle saw both players trading pars over the first five extra holes, with each having opportunities to clinch victory.

Ultimately, it was at the first hole, the third time around, where Brady seized the moment. When Paul narrowly missed his putt, Brady who was on a similar line and distance sunk the crucial putt to secure a hard-fought victory.

The match, which could have swung either way, culminated in disappointment for Paul from Castleknock. Nevertheless, with no “rub of the green” anywhere in the round, his valiant effort and continued improvement signal that his time to claim a championship title is imminent.

In summary, the semi-final clash between Paul and David was a spectacle of skill, determination, and sportsmanship, captivating spectators and leaving a lasting impression on all who witnessed it.

Drive-In: After the Event

Traditionally, the drive-in marks the start of another golfing season at Castleknock Golf Club. The 2024 captains, John and Sharon, teed off amidst applause and cheers from fellow members. Their drives not only launched the season but also set the tone for a day filled with banter, friendly competition and craic.

Following the drive-in, members eagerly took to the course for a scramble and with 27 teams contending, the fairways buzzed with activity as players of all skill levels worked together to navigate and find their way around the course.

After the golf, we all gathered in the clubhouse for the usual celebrations. Amidst the aroma of freshly prepared food and the clinking of glasses, members recounted their shots and shared the usual tall tales from the day’s play. As usual, the clubhouse, food and booze provided the perfect setting for fostering new friendships and strengthening existing ones.

The winning team, comprised of Eilis O’Sullivan (25), Cian O’Ceilleachair (12), Neil Clarke (16) and Bennett Anyanwu (22), had a fantastic score of 52 shots and their stellar performance was greeted with both admiration and astonishment from all attending the presentation of prizes.

In conclusion, the Captains Drive-In 2024 was a great success and as the golfing season progresses, driven by the dedication of John and Sharon, and the active participation of all members, things can only get better for all at the club.

Some Photos HERE

Captains’ Drive-In

Hey there!

We’re reaching out to ask for your support in making a real difference in the lives of children in Barretstown. At Barretstown Children’s Charity, our mission is simple: to bring smiles, laughter, and hope to the little ones who need it most.

Every donation, big or small, goes directly toward providing essentials like warm meals, educational resources, and unforgettable experiences for these amazing kids. With your help, we can create brighter futures and unforgettable memories.

Together, we can be the spark that ignites joy and opportunity in the hearts of these children. Let’s make a difference, one happy moment at a time.

Donate today and be a part of something truly special! Thank you for your kindness and generosity. 🌈💖

Below is a link for your kind donations to the Captains’ Charity.

www.justgiving.com/page/captains-1709114111087 

Interclub 2024

Raffle for executive car space

Charity Fund for Alzheimer’s

01/02/2024: Kudos to Castleknock golf club, captains John and Carol, and all the members for their amazing effort in raising €25,000 for the Alzheimer’s society. It’s heartwarming to see such strong community support for a great cause. 🌟⛳👏

Hole in One

11/1/2024: Congrats to David Coughlan on the first hole-in-one at Castleknock Golf Club in 2024. A six iron into the pot at the 7th hole is no small feat. Wishing him and all our members a year filled with more great shots and success on the golf course!

Country Cousins International (Portugal 5-8 January)

Dublin vs. Country Cousins Golf Extravaganza!
It was the golf showdown of the year as Dublin clashed with their country cousins in an exhilarating weekend in Portugal! Four rounds of fierce competition with both teams fielding 10 players each unfolded at the iconic Old Course (twice), Pinhal, and Laranjal,
Day 1: The Dubs kicked off with a bang, claiming victory in three out of the five games, setting the stage for an epic battle.
Day 2: The country cousins weren’t ones to back down; they roared back, levelling the scores and turning up the intensity.
Day 3 at Laranjal: The stakes were high, the competition fierce, but neither team could break the deadlock, leaving everything to play for.
Day 4 at The Old Course: The singles matches were a roller-coaster of suspense and skill. Nail-biting until the last putt, the Dubs emerged triumphant, seizing the cup for the second time!
Trophy Presentation: Amidst cheers and banter, Paudi Lyons, the Cousins’ captain, handed over the coveted cup to the Dublin captain Paul Tierney giving the Dubs another year of bragging rights.

This golfing spectacle showcased not only exceptional skills but also the heart-pounding drama that makes golf the thrilling sport it is. Congratulations to the Dubs for their spectacular triumph! This weekend will be etched in the annals of golf history!😎😎

See a few photos HERE

Greetings from McDaids

Sending warm wishes for a Christmas filled with laughter, great company, and maybe even a few rounds of holiday golf. Here’s to a Merry and Healthy Christmas for all members of Castleknock GC.

Jack C

AGM 2023

Held on 8th December 2023. A Good crowd attended.. The various reports delivered by the committee can be viewed HERE

Picture:> Outgoing Captain John Newcombe with the incoming Captain John O’Donoghue

Brophy Trophy ’24

Dear Member,

The annual CLUB FOURSOMES Matchplay competition a.k.a. The BROPHY TROPHY will begin in December 23. The competition has been kindly sponsored by Mr Lorcan Brophy and will run to the end of March 24.

Full details can be viewed HERE

The Dinner

The Captains’ Dinner was an absolute blast! John Newcombe, the charismatic Men’s Captain, and Carol Kirwan, the graceful Ladies’ Captain, set the tone for an unforgettable evening. The atmosphere was great with speeches that struck the perfect balance between heartfelt and humorous. As the night unfolded, the dance floor became a hub of energy, fueled by a fantastic band that kept everyone grooving. Craic echoed through the venue, making it clear that this was more than just an event—it was a celebration of camaraderie and merriment. Here’s to more memorable nights next year with John and Sharon!!!

For some photos of the evening click HERE

Captains’ Dinner

Hole in One

Declan Carolan had a hole in One on the ninth hole this morning (19/11/23)

Player of the Year 2023

Duggan is the 2023 Player of the Year

12/11/23: Niall Duggan’s victory in the rescheduled match against Sean Quinn was quite impressive. Right from the start, Niall was red hot, playing the first nine in just 1 over par and kicking on in the back 9 to finish with a brilliant 66 nett. Well done Niall great round of golf.

Note: The course was closed (waterlogged) so match will be rescheduled for another date.

The Player of the Year competition has ended with a tie between Sean Quinn and Niall Duggan on 128 points each and highlights the consistency of their performances throughout the year.

Both lads will play in a match (strokes) on Saturday at Noon to decide the winner. The playoff promises to be an epic conclusion to what has been a fiercely competitive season of golf.

Be sure to follow it live on the Clubnet app for all the latest updates!

For POTY table click HERE

NIGHT GOLF

Night golf adds a quirky twist to the classic game, transforming the golf course into a magical, illuminated wonderland. Picture this: vibrant neon lights outlining fairways and greens, casting a surreal glow on the entire course. It’s not just a game; it’s an experience! The challenge of judging distances and slopes becomes even more exciting when the surroundings are mysterious and dimly lit. There’s a sense of camaraderie among players as they navigate the course together, sharing laughs under the stars. Night golf certainly isn’t about improving your swing; it’s about embracing the craic with a touch of magic. It’s an adventure that every golfer should experience at least once! ⛳🌌 and after the golf, there’s nothing like heading upstairs to wrap up the evening. The 19th hole is where the real stories unfold- in Castleknock anyway – where you can share your great shots and near-misses while savoring a pint or your favorite beverage. It’s the perfect way to end the night, with good company, great conversation, and Lorcan at his best ….. where else would you get it. Cheers to a great night on the course and an even better night at the 19th hole! 🍻⛳🌠

Some photos of the Night Golf HERE

HOLE in ONE

Hole in One for Mr Hudson today at the 6th hole in Luttrellstown Golf Club.

EGM

The committee have arranged a bunker information night on Thursday 12^th October, to coincide with the EGM. This meeting will take place at 7pm and Mr Ed Pettitt of Carr golf will be in attendance to explain the project and address any concerns you may have.

Pictures of Captain’s Charity day HERE

Night Golf 6th October

Well deserved Quentin.

HOLE in ONE

10/9/23

Mark O’Sullivan had a Hole in One on the ninth hole in Sunday’s medal.

Club Championship Match Play 2023

Finals on Sunday 17th September at 11.50 to 12.30.

2023 Interprovincial Championship

Captains John and Carol – Castleknock Golf Club,

As you are probably aware by now, your Club members Paul Coughlan and Quentin Carew have been selected to represent Leinster in the 2023 Interprovincial Championship being played in Moyvalley Golf Club.  

This is a great honour for Paul and Quentin, their families and indeed Castleknock Golf Club. Their selection reflects the fine form they have displayed this year.

We write to you to congratulate your Club on their selection and also to ask you to reach out to your members and encourage them to come down to Moyvalley to support Paul and Quentin and the rest of the Leinster team. The matches are on Tuesday to Thursday 29-31 August with foursomes each morning followed by singles in the afternoon.

Yours in golf.

Harry McAllinden (Team Captain) & Michael Maher (Team Manager)

Monty has a big smile after his eagle on the first in the PGA comp on Thursday (24/8/23)

Irish Amateur Close at Malone GC

A brilliant effort by Quentin to retain his Close championship at Malone GC yesterday. After coming from 4 back with 10 to play he sank a 6 foot putt on the last to force a playoff against Rob Moran of the Castle GC. The 18th hole was played twice again and tied both times before they changed to the par 3 twelfth hole and it was won with a birdie by Rob. Once again, Quentin and Paul were flying the flag high for Castleknock Golf Club and confirming the prominent position the club has attained in the senior echelons of amateur golf in Ireland.

Paul Heffernan had a hole in one on the 18th hole in the Captain’s qualifier. Well done Paul and hopefully the first of many.

Barton Shield Regional Finals at Castleknock

Castleknock beat The Island by 5 holes in the morning semi finals with Forrest Little winning the other semi against Greenore. Castleknock went on to win the pennant in the afternoon beating Forrest Little by 2 holes. Team manager was David Coughlan and the team members were Paul Coughlan, Quentin Carew, Ruairi Kennelly, James Mitten, Ian O’Connell, Luke Curran and Dara McNicholl. Some photographs of the day are below.

South Of Ireland 23

30/7/23: The journey is over for Paul this year after been hit by an avalanche of birdies in the semi final by Colm Campbell on the opening nine in Lahinch this morning. Colm went around the front nine in a 5 under par 31 shots.

However, it was a great championship for Paul who continues to make himself a stalwart on the Irish golf scene. Well done Paul we salute your great effort these last few days in Clare.

Barton Shield

24/7/23

The Barton Shield team had a hard fought quarter final win over Malahide Golf Club in Malahide yesterday. 2 holes down at the turn they moved up a gear on the back nine and eventually won by 4 holes. The regional semi final and final will be played in Castleknock on the 13th of August where Castleknock will take on The Island and Greenore will take on Forrest Little in the other semi final. The final will be played on the same afternoon.

Castleknock Scratch Cup 2023

Report by Ronan MacNamara of the Irish Golfer

Quentin Carew picked up his second Senior Scratch Cup of the season as he edged out Enniscrone’s David Shiel in a playoff on a thrilling Saturday afternoon in Castleknock.

The Irish Close champion roared out of the traps with a five-under 67 in tough windy conditions to build up a three-shot advantage heading into the second round in the afternoon.

A two-under front nine maintained Carew’s three-shot cushion on seven-under-par before a birdie on the 10th saw him stretch his lead to five and seemingly out of sight.

Carew moved to nine-under with two holes to play but he was no longer coasting to victory as Shiel applied serious pressure with a blistering run of four birdies in seven holes to shoot from level to six-under.

Shiel then birdied the 18th before Carew amazingly double bogeyed the closing par 3.

The tables turned once again in the playoff as the players went down the 18th. Both players came up short but Shiel found the water and cost him a double meaning Carew had two putts for bogey from 15 feet to seal the deal to rapturous cheers from his fellow members.

“Delighted to get the win,” said Carew. “It was a tough day out there, particularly in the second round, a lot of wind.

“I started off really well in the second round and got a good lead by a few shots on the lads. Made a few silly mistakes over the last five or six holes and David made some birdies to get back into it.

“After 18 it was all level again and it was tough to take after having a good lead and letting it slip. It was hard to refocus I was very down on myself and angry with myself, just silly mistakes.

“I got my head back into the right place and told myself I was still in it. The relief was unbelievable to be honest!

“The feeling of throwing it away is the hardest thing ever to get your head back into the frame of mind to refocus and get it done. I was delighted to get my head back in the right place and get it over the line, it will stand to me no doubt.”

Legends

Senior Cup

After a brilliant win over the hosting club, Baltray, in the semi finals of the cup we came up against Royal Dublin in the final but they proved too good and won by 3.5 to 1.5.

12/7/2023

Senior Cup Semi- Finals: Sunday next

03/07/2023

Quentin and caddie Paul at the final qualifying for The Open at the Royal Portcawl links this morning.

President’s Prize

President’s Prize

Hi All,

This coming Saturday is Rita O’Dwyer’s President’s Day. For the President’s prize your score will count towards the Golfer of the Year award. The format is Singles Stableford, played from the Blue Tees. As this competition is designated a Major, there are a number of additional conditions:

• To win the President’s prize a member must have entered 4 qualifying club competitions in previous 12 months
• The maximum playing Handicap is 28 (for all Major Competitions) – a player’s nett score will be calculated on the basis of a maximum handicap of 28. This will not preclude members with an excess of 28 playing handicap from winning a category prize.
• There is a requirement to have recorded a minimum of 20 registered WHS qualifying scores in the Golf Ireland scoring App in order to win a major competition.
• While juniors are eligible to enter, they are not eligible to win the overall President’s 1^st or 2^nd Prizes. They are of course, eligible to win the other prizes.

Rgds

Tom Maher Comp Sec

Shocking Merger Throws Golf Into Even More Chaos

By: Derek Clements | Wed 07 Jun 2023 | 

In a special View From The Fairway column, Golfshake’s Derek Clements shares his current thoughts on the staggering news story that has engulfed the world of golf this week.

AND so, finally, the squabbling is over. In a shock announcement, it has been revealed that the PGA Tour and DP World Tour will now be working alongside the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, which has financed LIV Golf.

Well, that’s what those in charge would want us all to believe. In reality, there is not a chance.  

If anything, the merger has thrown the sport into even more chaos, with allegations of hypocrisy being aimed at many of the central players involved. Many golfers feel let down by their leadership, believing that golf has now been sold to the highest bidder.

PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan, who could barely bring himself to utter the words “LIV Golf” only a few days ago, is one of the chief architects behind the merger and many of his members feel that he has let them down. 

Last year Monahan said: “As long as I’m commissioner of the PGA Tour no player who took LIV money will ever play on the PGA Tour again.” He now says all golfers who joined LIV will be able to reapply for PGA Tour membership in 2024.

Unsurprisingly, there have been calls for him to resign, and it is difficult to see how he can possibly survive.

Human rights group Amnesty say the announcement is further evidence of Saudi Arabian efforts to draw attention away from the country’s human rights record. And the 9/11 victims group says the PGA Tour should be ashamed of their “greed and hypocrisy”.

In theory, LIV golfers are now free to play in the Ryder Cup, but first the Europeans would have to reapply for membership of the DP World Tour, serve suspensions and pay fines.

It remains to be seen whether relationships that appeared to be irreparably damaged as a result of the split can ever truly be healed but this is probably the outcome most of us who love golf had hoped for – but never dared believe would actually happen.

Many harsh words have been exchanged by all sides over the past year or so, things that can never be unsaid.

But at least we now know that there will be no more protracted court battles and that everybody involved can get back to doing what they do best – playing golf without distractions and allegations ringing in their ears.

It will also hopefully see the end of all those dreadful parody accounts on social media. And we can look forward to golfers no longer bad-mouthing each other on Twitter.

Hopefully, most LIV golfers will be welcomed back with open arms but there may still be some difficult conversations ahead for some of those who moved to LIV Golf and were the most vocal critics of the PGA Tour and DP World Tour.

Phil Mickelson accused the PGA Tour of greed. Then again, he said the Saudis were “scary mother*****s”. And remember that Brooks Koepka was booed when he was announced to the first tee at the US PGA Championship, which he went on to win.

There was also that unsavoury spat between Rory McIlroy and Patrick Reed in Dubai.

And does this mean for Greg Norman? During the past year he has arguably been the most divisive character in this whole sorry saga, closely followed by Sergio Garcia and Mickelson.

So how will this deal sit with the many people who have criticised Saudi Arabia’s involvement in professional golf, given their human rights record?

The man who now appears hold all the cards is Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of the Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund and the man who holds LIV Golf’s purse strings.

On Tuesday as the news broke, PGA Tour pro Michael Kim asked on Twitter: “What the hell is going?” Canadian Mackenzie Hughes wrote: “Nothing like finding out through Twitter that we’re merging with a tour that we said we’d never do that with.”

Two-time major winner Collin Morikawa echoed that sentiment: “I love finding out morning news on Twitter.”

It is clear that PGA Tour golfers had no clue that this was about to happen, and many feel bewildered. Considering everything that has been said and written, that is hardly surprising.

The Golf Channel’s Brandel Chamblee said: “When I first heard about it, I was completely shocked. After the shock sort of ebbed away, I was hugely disappointed.

“I think this is one of the saddest days in the history of professional golf. I do believe the governing bodies, the entities, the professional entities have sacrificed their principles for profit.”

It is difficult to argue with that view.

Unsurprisingly, Mickelson had a different take on it all. He tweeted: “Awesome day today.”

There will, no doubt, now be a clamour for Garcia to be included in Europe’s Ryder Cup team. Given some of the things he has said about the DP World Tour, how can that possibly be allowed to happen? The Spaniard has always been a man who divides opinion and would do little to promote team unity.

Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter may also find some support for Ryder Cup recalls but, really, what would they add to the team? They have shown no form to speak of since their defections and are clearly past their best.

This is a stunning development that has taken the golf world by surprise. The PGA and DP World Tours were sworn enemies of the LIV circuit, which had poached some of their best players.

They viewed Norman’s breakaway tour as an existential threat and entered into bitter and expensive legal action. But this was becoming increasingly uncomfortable for LIV’s Saudi Arabian backers, who faced the prospect of being interrogated under oath during the discovery process.

The PGA Tour were also looking at huge costs to finance a string of $20m (£16.1m) tournaments introduced to counter LIV and had already dipped into their reserves.

It is a truly extraordinary climbdown for the PGA and DP World Tours to acknowledge LIV as being “positively transformative for golf”.

Nevertheless, this deal appears to signal Saudi Arabia’s massive wealth as a unifying force for the men’s professional game. That is not likely to sit easily with critics who have regarded the PIF’s involvement with LIV as nothing more than sportswashing for a Kingdom whose human rights record is often questioned.

How this will transform the game remains to be seen, but all sides will be happy the threat of legal action has gone away. LIV players also now have a pathway back into a more unified game.

The golfers who turned down the LIV millions to remain loyal to the established tours must be questioning their decisions now. 

They could be forgiven for feeling somewhat betrayed when the rebels walk back into the PGA Tour and DP World Tours next season.

It turns out that they could have had their cake and eaten it after all.

Vice Captain’s 23

Looking good lads!

Dressed by Gucci.

Roddy and Paul set the style in the Club Match Play this morning.

But alas, in round 2, the Gucci men met their match in Martin and Sean in what was a humdinger on Tuesday. They’ll have to keep the other 5 outfits till next year.

Where would it have gone!!

Shay Lynam had a hole in one on the 9th hole on the 18^th May.

West of Ireland Championship (see update below)

The West of Ireland Championship which starts Easter week in Rosses Point is celebrating the event’s 100th Year. First played in 1923 when Co Sligo’s Larry Vernon beat BM Cook 3&2 in the final, the Championship has since been won by major winners Pádraig Harrington (1994), Rory McIlroy (2005 and 2006) and Shane Lowry (2008).

The championship will boast a new format this year with the field playing three rounds of stroke play on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, with the leading 16 players then facing off in match play. There will be an 18-hole stroke play qualifying event on Wednesday April 5th offering at least eleven places in the 132-strong Championship field.

Bray’s Alan Fahy defends the title he won twelve months ago and last year’s beaten finalist, Liam Nolan is in the field as well. A notable absentee will be Matthew McClean who will be playing in the Masters over the Easter weekend.

4 players from Castleknock, Paul Coughlan, Quentin Carew (Irish Close Champion), Ruairi Kennelly and James Mitten qualify directly for the event while Luke Curran and Dara McNicholl will tee it up in the qualifying round on Wednesday. We are hoping for great things for the lads and they can be sure we will be following their progress with great interest on the URL below.

Update on West 11/4/23

Quentin Carew finished in 4th place overall in the stroke play portion of the west and this morning overcame the English man Aaron Edwards-Hill to win by 2 holes in the last 16 of the match play. Unfortunately , after a real neck and neck match in the quarter final, he was beaten 2 & 1 by Marc Boucher of Carton House.

The overall winner of the West of Ireland was James Claridge from Enville Golf club near Birmingham England who had an easy 6 & 5 winning margin over Barry Anderson from the home club, County Sligo.

Rosslare Senior Scratch Cup

Quentin and Paul finished joint leaders along with Jake Whelan of the Grange on 4 under par at the Rosslare Scratch cup on Saturday. In the playoff between the 3 of them, Jake fell by the wayside on the first hole and left both Castleknock lads to battle it out. A fine putt won it for Quentin on the 3rd playoff hole.

Congratulations and well done to both of the lads, they’re certainly putting Castleknock on the map!!

What a great way to focus the mind and swing for next weeks provencial championship at Rosses Point.

Captains’ Drive-in 23 Pics HERE

Jayo in New York HERE

Multi Media

Saint Paddy’s Day

Junior Car space

Una Murphy has submitted the successful bid for the Junior Club reserved parking space. Una will own this space from this weekend the 4^th March.

On behalf of the members, we thank Una for her generous support of this fundraiser for the Junior members. Thank you Una !

In addition, on behalf of our Captains John and Carol . Can I remind everyone that tickets for the raffle for the other reserved car parking space are still available in the pro shop. All funds raised go to the captain’s nominated charity, the Alzheimer’s society.

The draw for this prize will be made on the evening of the Captains Drive in on Saturday the 25^th of March. 

Plenty of time to get yourself the winning ticket for the good cause.

Regards, Hon Sec.

Draws for Reserved Car Spaces

Draw 1

In support of our junior club, we have the pleasure to offer members a chance to tender for a Reserved car parking space at the front of the clubhouse. Funds raised will go directly to support our Junior members development at Castleknock golf club.

This is a blind Bid tender with the parking space for 1 year going to the highest bidder.

Bids must be made via one single email to the hon secretary at honsec@castleknockgc.ie copying also our junior Conveyor, Cormac Reilly at juniorgolf@castleknockgolfclub.ie

Deadline for valid bids is Friday the 25^th February.

The new owner of this valuable space will be announced on the evening of the Captains Drive in.

On behalf of your committees’ and the Junior club , we thank you in advance for your support

Please note this is running in conjunction with a separate Raffle for another reserved parking space with the funds going to the Captains charity for 2023. Tickets available for this space in the Club shop.

Draw 2

A charity raffle will be held on the evening of Saturday, March 4^th (Captains Drive-in) for the reserved parking space in front of the entrance of the Club House.

The raffle is being held in aid of The Alzheimer Society of Ireland which is the Captains Charity for 2023.  Tickets can be purchased in the pro-shop and cost €10 per ticket and are on sale now.  This is your chance to win your own reserved parking space at the club until March 2024 whilst supporting a wonderful charity in their fundraising efforts.

The Alzheimer Society of Ireland is the leading dementia specific service provider in Ireland.  The society works across the country in the heart of local communities providing dementia specific services and supports and advocating for the rights and needs of all people living with dementia and their carers.

The society also operates the Alzheimer National Helpline offering information and support to anyone affected by dementia on 1800 341 341.

Thanks in anticipation of your support for this worthy cause.

Kind Regards,

John Newcombe  and   Carol Kirwan

Captain                           Lady Captain

The Brophy Trophy 2023

Hello members,

• It’s that time of the year again & we’re calling on all members interested in representing Castleknock Golf Club in inter-club competitions during 2023.
• Our annual foursomes competition, open to all members, will recommence on 6th February & will be limited to the first 32 pairings entered. 
• All interested players must register with the pro shop before 6pm on the 4th February.
• This competition has played a major part in identifying players for inter-club teams, so we’d encourage anyone interested in representing Castleknock to register.
• In the event you don’t haven’t a partner, not to worry, we will match you up accordingly.

Competition Format As Follows :

• Foursomes match play played from the white tees.
• Golf Ireland playing Handicap allowance applies, the maximum handicap for each player is 24.
• Entrance fee is €10 per player. Register your name and telephone number via the pro-shop by 6pm on 4th February.
• An open draw will take place on the 16th January and will be published, along with competition rules, that evening. 

• Round 1 to be completed by Sunday 19th February.
• Round 2 to be completed by Sunday 5th March.
• Round 3 to be completed by Sunday 19th March.
• Semi-Finals will be held on the weekend of the 1st & 2nd of April.
• The Final will be held on the weekend of the 8th & 9th  of April.

Prizes for winners, runners-up & semi-finalists.

Best of luck to all participants,

Michael Clancy & Stuart Banks

Awards Night

_{26th Nov}

Well done Paul!

Paul Windsor had a hole in one at the 18th last Saturday.

Captains’ Dinner (photos)

Match Play Championships

Tables HERE

Mixed

The final of the Mixed Foursomes took place today (October 27th) and resulted in a win for Feargal Costello and his daughter Iseult against Paddy and Rosaleen Geaney.

Singles

The singles match play champion is Mark Gilsenan who got the better of John R Murphy in the final on Sunday last.

Doubles

In the Doubles event the winners were Anthony Doyle and Diarmuid O’Mahony who overcame the father and son pairing of John and Ben Newcombe. It was a second championship for Anthony and Diarmuid who had won it previously in 2018.

Golfer of the Year

October 22

Liam Smith is the Golfer of the Year for 2022. It was a very close run race with a mere 3 points separating Liam and the runner-up Martin Cahill over the 12 events that made up the competition.

See table HERE

Barton Shield at Tramore GC. and the night before in Waterford

Captain’s Plate and Lady Captain’s Prize

Luttrellstown Challenge Match – Sun 4th Sept

We lost out to Luttrellstown in our annual Ladies Fourball Annual challenge yesterday. But everyone really enjoyed the day and it was fantastic to have 3 junior girls on our panel for the match… Ellen O’Shaughnessy, Caoimhe Toland and Iseult Costello .
Luttrellstown have now won the trophy 3 times in a row . So, we will have to do better next year and bring the trophy home !!!

All Ireland Barton Shield Finals

All Ireland information update at Tramore Golf Club.
QF
Thursday 1st September Tee off at 9.40 and 9.50
Castleknock v Roscommon GC.
If Castleknock win they will play either Cork or Galgorm Castle in the semi-final on Friday at 11.50 and 12.00.
For Supporters travelling please note below regarding parking. All supporters are to use parking and shuttle service which will be available at Tramore Racecourse, which is 4 minutes away.
No parking available at the golf course itself.

Best of luck to Michael and Margo on their Captains day

Inter-provincial Championship

Leinster won the Inter-provincials by half a point today with a score of 20 matches won and a big part of their success was due to our own Paul Coughlan who contributed 4 and a half of these. Paul was unbeaten in his doubles matches and his overall performance has surely cemented his position in the team moving forward.

Quentin Carew

Wednesday 17th Jack Creaner

Arrived in Headford around 8.30 and dropped into pro-shop for my first cappuccino of the day. It was chilly and I was glad I had my vintage Castleknock jumper to keep the chill out. The first person I met was David Coughlan who was “in the office” but had time to let me know that Quentin was 1up having just made a birdie on the 2nd hole but as I reached the group of spectators he had been pegged back to all square by Paul Conroy’s birdie on 4. Sharing 5, 6, 7 and eight, Quentin went 1 up at the ninth with a super putt for a birdie 3 and he held onto the 1 hole advantage through the back nine which both players covered in level par. What a morning, and the dream lived on.

It was time to refuel for the final in the afternoon against the 1/10 favourite Hugh Foley, playing out of Royal Dublin, who had already won the North of Ireland, South of Ireland and the Bridgestone Order of Merit for 2022. Quentin had reached the final and we were delighted for him but surely he could not overcome an Irish champion at the top of his form – no, the bookies were right and the contingent from Castleknock and Edenderry should be happy enough with what they had. And we were. Great. We all went to lunch..but ended up having breakfast and someone had trifle …just like mother made.

So one o’clock arrived and we all washed the hands and trudged off to see what the afternoon would bring. The sun was breaking through so it was decided to leave the jumper in the car and and don the wide brimmed sunhat. Got to the first and they had already teed off and I noticed Quentin had found the left side bunker some 190 yards from the green. The loud cheer told it all and the hole was halved but Q went 1 up when his approach to the third finished a foot from the hole and was conceded by Hugh. A poor tee shot to the par 3 fourth resulted in a loss and both had birdie threes at the fifth before Q hit a bad patch and lost the 6th, 7th, 8th and ninth to go 4 down. Surely there was no coming back from that! A bird on the 10th was followed by another on the 12th and when Foley conceded the 14th it was game back on. The par 5, 16th was huge. Quentin hit a 3 wood to 7 or eight feet of the pin and Hugh then bunkered his in the green side bunker. With a slightly downhill lie his bunker shot went close but continued through the putting surface and left a tricky return chip which he didn’t execute too well. The eagle putt was conceded and we began to wonder if this thing was possible. Certainly, Q was the coolest of the two but both hit great shots to the 17th and to the last but although they went close, neither could sink a winner.

Lap 3 of the day. The 19th. Foley went close with his birdie putt but Quentin’s looked to have his in the middle of the hole until the last couple of inches. On his knees, he couldn’t believe it!

The 20th is a 525 yard par 5 and both players used iron to leave themselves about 275 yards from the hole. Q went first and faded a 2 iron to 8 feet from the back pin. What a shot!! Under the greatest of pressure, Hugh finished up in the bunker short of the green and his bunker shot came up 20 feet short. He putted and missed. The unbelievable story of Quentin’s journey could never had ended with a concession and indeed it didn’t. The eagle putt never left the hole and the 2022 Irish AIG Irish Men’s Amateur Close Champion was Quentin Carew of Castleknock golf club.

Sure we always knew he would do it.

Tuesday 16th 4.20pm

This is some adventure. Quentin has reached the semi final having won 2&1 in the morning game against Jake Foley and beating Sam Murphy by the same margin in the Quarter final.

Headford is the place to be tomorrow for the semi final 😀😀

Monday 15th 4.30pm

Quentin has progressed to the 3rd round of the AIG Irish Men’s Amateur Close Championship at Headfort golf club. He beat Alex Maguire from Laytown and Bettystown in the morning round and has just overcome Rory Milne from Faithlegg in the afternoon fixture. He’ll be lining up against Jake Foley from Elm Park in the 3rd round and with a little luck he will keep the Castleknock flag flying. C’mon Quentin.

Paul Coughlan

From John Newcombe: More good news!

Paul Coughlan has been selected on the Leinster team for upcoming inter-pros.

See below from the Leinster manager.

                                  ————————————

Subject: Leinster Inter-pros 2022 – Paul Coughlan

As you are probably aware by now, your Club member Paul Coughlan has been selected to represent Leinster in the 2022 Interprovincial Championship being played in Moyvalley Golf Club.

This is a great honour for Paul, his family and indeed Castleknock Golf Club. Paul’s selection reflects the fine form he has displayed this year and is now one of the top Amateurs in Ireland.

We write to you to congratulate your Club on Paul’s selection and also to ask you to reach out to your members and encourage them to come down to Moyvalley to support Paul and the rest of the Leinster team. The matches are on Tuesday to Thursday 23-25 August with foursomes each morning followed by singles in the afternoon.

Yours in golf.

Harry McAllinden (Team Captain) & Michael Maher (Team Manager)

Captains’ Prize 2022

Revive Active Ladies Fourball

Margo: Revive Active Ladies Fourball Leinster North Final v Royal Tara 

Unfortunately we lost out to Royal Tara, in the Leinster North final yesterday. The better team won on the day.

It was fabulous to see so many supporters come along to cheer on our team in Lutrellstown – in the glorious sun.

Thank you to everyone who came along – both male and female!

A special thank you to Una Murphy & Carol Kirwan – for managing the panel during the last few months- and for getting us to a final !

Some photos of the day below

Barton Shield Leinster Region

Paudie Lyons: Bard in Residence at Castleknock G.C.

“All hoped for things will come to you, who have the strength to watch and wait”

Violet Fane- “Tout vient a qui sait attendre”

A Barton Shield final where the venue was fixed before a ball was struck. 

The Knock burdened with the cruel injustice of facing a team who had the enormous good fortune of playing both matches, not at a neutral venue, but on their home patch.

No matter. 

Often the underdog, sometimes the upstart, this Castleknock team stared down the inequity and dismissed it. 

The old saying held true that the bigger they come, the harder they fall. And so it came to pass that a Dundalk team, with Irish International and Walker Cup player Caolán Rafferty in its ranks, reached for 5th gear down the stretch, and found that it simply wasn’t enough. 

In the end it came down, as it must in any good golf story, to the last. 

A treacherous chip over a bunker to a tight flag off a dodgy lie. Cometh the moment, cometh the man. Our man. Iano. For most of us who have been here since at or near the start, Ian is a young fella who has grown up with the club. Fitting then that he should deliver the coup de grace. 

But this panel has now written their names in the history of Castleknock GC. As has the manager, Dave Coughlan, and the interclub brains trust, the dream team of Niall Duggan and John Newcombe. 

And so onward to an All Ireland Quarter Final. Dreams of a green pennant dancing in our eyes.

The American Quarterback, Joe Namath perhaps put it best

“If you aren’t going all the way, why go at all?” 

Joe could talk. He knew. Three superbowls. Now is the time to embrace our inner Joe!! 

And so we watched and waited, but we wait no more. See you in Tramore. This story has a bit to run. 

The Quarter Finals of the All Ireland Barton Shield will take place in Tramore golf club from the 1st to 3rd September

Leinster Women’s Championship

Congratulations to Ellen O’Shaughnessy who finished runner up in the Leinster Women’s Championship match play at Bray golf club on Sunday.

Hole in One

Iseult Costello, Siun’s sister, claimed a hole in one on the 18th hole last Friday!

Junior Open Tour

Well done Siun we’re very proud of your great achievement.

President’s Prize photos

The NCBI HolmPatrick cup raises funds for the National Council for the Blind of Ireland.

The 2022 Brophy Trophy winners( Gerard Gilsenan and Nicholas Treanor) will represent Castleknock Golf Club in the HolmPatrick Cup at Bray GC on 8^th September 2022. Best of luck to the lads. –https://www.ncbiholmpatrickcup.com/all-dublin-final/

Mixed Foursomes Interclub Team

John Newcombe 21st July

Congratulations to Mixed Foursomes team who had a comprehensive 4-1 win over Blackbush last night. They are now into the semi-final against Balbriggan. Date to be confirmed.
We’ll done all! The teams photo below.

Revive Active Ladies Fourball

By Margo: 18th July 2022

We are through to the final !!!

What a successful Interclub weekend we Castleknock Golf Club had this weekend! On Saturday the men won their Barton Shield semi final v Portmarnock , and on Sunday the Ladies Revive Active Fourball team won their semi final v Ardee.
So, the club is now through to 2 regional finals !

Huge Congratulations to the Revive Active Ladies Fourball team (and their very dedicated managers Una Murphy & Carol Kirwan) on getting the ladies through to our first ever regional final !!!.

The semi final v Ardee was played on the hottest day of the year so far. The fact that Trish & Iseult’s match in Castleknock went down the 19th  and the last match in Ardee (Eilish & Vivien) went down the 20th made the temperature even hotter for all players and spectators  ! Well done to Eilish , Vivien, Trish & Iseult on having nerves of steel to win those matches on the playoff holes .

Here are some photos of the victorious team:

Home – Trish Ryan & Iseult Costello, Richella Boggan & Sadhbh Kenny
Away- Eithne Cusack & Margo O’Donoghue, Una Murphy & Colette Cleary, Eilish O’Sullivan & Vivien Lee

The final will be v Royal Tara , on August 7th in Luttrellstown.

Barton Shield

From Captain Michael Clancy:

Dear member,

Castleknock Golf Club are playing Portmarnock Golf Club in the semi- final of the Barton Shield at 3pm tomorrow Saturday 17th( 1 match in each location)

It is the first time that the club has an opportunity to reach a pennant final at this premier elite golf level .

The weather will be good with 25c+ temperatures so I would appreciate your support (and family) by either coming to Castleknock or Portmarnock to cheer on the team.

Regards
Michael Clancy – Captain Castleknock Golf Club

John Newcombe: 13/7/22

3 Castleknock players, Paul Coughlan, Ian O’Connell and Ruairi Kennelly, have qualified for the North of Ireland Championship in Royal Portrush starting this morning. You can follow their progress using this link.

https://www.golfireland.ie/men-s-championships#/competition/3247636/leaderboard

President’s Prize

There was a great turnout of 181 for the President’s prize on Saturday and in the middle of the holiday season it shows how popular the new president is within the club. The weather played its part as well and produced a beautiful summer’s day with a slight breeze for comfort’s sake. The course as usual was playing in top notch condition and the scores reflected this with a good number of players beating the 36 points mark.

President’s Prizes

7 DAY Members: The President’s competition for 7day members will take place on Saturday 9^th July 2022 from 7am to 2pm. This is the second major of the season and will count towards GOTY.

Format:  Men: Stableford from the Blue Tees. Ladies: Stableford Red Tees

Competition entry Fee:   €10 payable in the Pro-Shop

BBQ food (Beef burger, Chicken Burger, Sausage) and salads (€12.50) will be available on the ground floor terrace area from 12pm  and will run throughout the day. Presentation of prizes is scheduled for 6.30pm.

Prizes Men

First, Second and Third Overall

First and Second in Handicap Categories

Lowest Gross, Nearest the Line on 13th

Nearest Pin on 18th, Front 9 and Back 9

(Max. of one prize per participant)

5 DAY Members: The President’s competition for 5day members will take place on Thursday 14^th  from 8am to 9am & 11.10am to 1.30pm.  The time sheet will be open for the competition at 6pm Wed. 6th

(PLEASE NOTE – If you are a member of the Porterstown Golf Association and normally play on Thursday morning, you may still play at your normal time-slot- between 9am and 11am and also enter the President’s prize at the same time as well – Remember to register for both in the Pro-shop)

Format:  Men: Stableford from the White tee. Ladies Red Tees

Competition entry Fee:   €10 – Payment by debit/credit card payable in the pro-Shop

BBQ food (Beef burger, Chicken Burger, Sausage) and salads (€12.50) will be available on the ground floor terrace area from 12pm onwards and will run throughout the day.

Payment will be taken by your Castleknock member’s flexi credit or by credit / debit card for refreshments and food.

The presentation of prizes is scheduled for 5.30pm Thursday afternoon.

There will be an array of prizes to be won:

Prizes

First, Second, Third and Fourth Overall

Nearest the Line on 13th

Nearest Pin on 18th, Front 9 and Back 9

(Max. of one prize per participant)

The best of luck to all and looking forward to seeing you all then .                                  

Rita O’Dwyer

President – Castleknock Golf Club   

Hole in One July Medal

Mixed Foursomes Rd 3

Margo: CONGRATULATIONS to the Mixed Foursomes Interclub Team on their 3rd round victory over Headfort on Sunday . We are now through to the Leinster North Region Quarter Final v Blackbush .

Photos of the smiling teams and their managers at home and away :

Inter Club 26th June 22

John Newcombe:

Upcoming Junior Boys fixtures this week

U15 boys against Laytown and Bettystown – away on Monday June 27th and home on Sunday July 3rd

U18 boys qualifiers in Forrest Little on Thursday June 30th.

Weekend results!
Pierce Purcell
Headfort 3
Castleknock 2.

Barton Shield
Castleknock beat Laytown by 6 holes.
Castleknock to play Portmarnock in S/F .

Vice Captains’ Prize

Keith Walsh and Sharon Cosgrove win the Vice Captain Prizes

Amateur Championship

Interclub Mixed Foursomes

Margo: 13th June

The club won their 2nd round match v Greenore 3-2 today. Congratulations to the managers and their team. In Castleknock, the 2 pairings who played (and won their matches) were Danny Cole & Veronica Coughlan, and Luke Curran & Eilis O’Sullivan.
Photo of the team that played in Greenore are below

Carton Cup

13th June

UKRAINIAN SUPPORT FUND

CAR SPACE RAFFLE RESULT

Thank you to all who supported our Captains Raffle – for the Reserved  Parking Space in the golf club – from 1 June 2022. We raised €1,220  for Enable Ireland 

The winner is: COLETTE CLEARY. Congratulations and enjoy your new parking space Colette!

Michael Clancy & Margo O’Donoghue

Raffle for Reserved Car Space

In Aid of Enable Ireland. Tickets €10 each.
Reserved parking space for a year, starting on 1 June 2022.

Tickets are available at Pro Shop: payment by credit / debit card only 
OR
If you have an active competition account, simply reply to this email stating how many tickets you would like to purchase . 

Tickets must be purchased by Sunday 22nd May  to be included in the draw.

Brophy Trophy

Inter-Club news

The Men’s interclub season gets into full swing next week with 3 teams in action.

Our Senior Cup team kicks off their campaign on Wednesday 4^th May with a home match against Co. Meath. Tee off at 4.30 pm.

On Friday 6^th May our All Ireland Fourball team start their season against Rathcore in an away match. Tee off at 4 pm.

Finally on Sunday 8^th May our Jimmy Bruen team tee off against Balcarrick at 2.30 pm. The Jimmy Bruen team reached the Area Final last year and are putting every effort to go one better this season.

All teams would appreciate as much support as possible so if you are around why not come down and watch your Club teams .

John Newcombe

Men’s Singles, Men’s Doubles and Mixed Foursomes

You have to enter through the Club V1 screen in the Pro-shop

[05/04/2022] John Newcombe:

The Laytown and Bettystown Scratch cup

Special Mention to Eoin Marsden on winning best 1st Round Gross in The Laytown and Bettystown Scratch cup last  weekend.  Eoin shot a superb 4 under par 1st round to lead the competition which was eventually won by Walker cup player Caolan Rafferty.
Well done, Eoin!

West Of Ireland Championship.

Castleknock have 5 players taking part in the West Of Ireland Championship taking place over Easter in Rosses Point.
Darragh McNichol and Luke Curran are taking part in the qualifiers on Wednesday with Ruari Kennelly, Quentin Carew and Paul Coughlan have already qualified for the main event starting on Good Friday.
Best of luck to all the lads and hopefully one of them will beat Paul’s 2nd place finish in 2021.

BROPHY TROPHY update

[05/04/2022] John Newcombe:

Hi All,
After 5 rounds in all types of weather, congratulations to our 2 Final pairings
Nick Traynor/Ger Gilsenan v David Beechinor/Brian Stephenson.
The Final has been confirmed for Good Friday at 1pm with trophy presentation taking place in clubhouse directly afterwards.
Well done to both pairings for reaching this stage and best of luck in the final.
Also many thanks to Lorcan Brophy for his kind sponsorship and support of this year’s tournament.
Also a special mention to Jack Creaner who updated the results section on the members website and kept everyone informed.

Winter/Spring league Update

Congratulations to Keith Walsh who won this with 233 points for his 6 best events. Full table here

Interclub News from Golf Ireland for 2022 season

For Golf Ireland information on the Inter club 2022 season click https://castleknockmembersclub.com/interclub-stuff/

Club Foursomes Trophy ( sponsored by Mr Lorcan Brophy)

Calling all members interested in playing interclub for Castleknock golf Club in 2022.

The Annual foursome’s competition will recommence on 17th January 2022 .

This is a competition open to all 7-day, student and Junior members and will be limited to the first 32 pairings entered.

We encourage all players who are interested in playing to register at pro shop before 6pm on 15^th January.

The tournament has played a major part in identifying players for Inter-club teams, so we encourage anyone interested in representing Castleknock at all levels to register to play.

Don’t worry if you haven’t a partner, once you enter at the pro shop a suitable team partner will be matched with yourself.

Format:

Foursomes Match-play off white Tees.

Golf Ireland playing Handicap allowance applies. Maximum Handicap for each player is 24.

Entrance fee €10 per player. Register with name and telephone number in Pro shop by 15^th January 2022.

Open Draw will take place on 16^th January and will be published along with competition rules on the that evening.

Round 1 will be completed by Sunday 30^th January.

Prizes for Winners, Finalists and both semi-finalists.

Thanks,

John Newcombe and Niall Duggan

Message from President

Dear Members,

I am privileged and honoured to be appointed President of Castleknock Golf Club for 2022 -2023.

I would like to thank Lady Captain Ann Robinson and her committee for nominating me for the position of President.

It has been an uplifting experience for both men and lady members to have a Lady President in the club for the first time. I very much appreciate the response from the members to my appointment which has been hugely complementary, supportive and encouraging.

I look forward to being your club ambassador, upholding its values, following in the footsteps of Pat, Bernard and Jack.

I would like to take this opportunity in wishing you and your family a very enjoyable and peaceful Christmas time and a healthy and prosperous New Year.

Rita O’Dwyer

President

Ladies AGM 8th December

Awards Night 3rd December

Appreciation days

Big thank you to Carr Golf and the golf and restaurant teams at Castleknock for hosting the 2  appreciation days this weekend. It was a huge success and very much enjoyed by the large turnout on both days.

As a gesture by Carr golf to reward the loyalty and understanding of the membership during the difficult period of the covid closedowns, it was a big hit.

Mixed Foursomes Matchplay 2021

Ladies Singles Matchplay 2021

Men’s Doubles Matchplay 2021 (23rd Oct)

Men’s Singles Matchplay 2021 (17th Oct)

Ladies Doubles Matchplay 17th Oct.

Player of the Year 2021

The Player of the Year was won by Stephen O’Donnell from Enda Ryan and Paudi Lyons. The result was in the balance until the final event.

Paul Coughlan wins the Castleknock Senior Scratch Cup

Senior Scratch Cup

The Castleknock Senior Scratch Cup (Maximum handicap 2) takes place next Saturday the 25th September. It promises to be a top class competition and at time of writing has 51 players taking part in this 36 holes comp. So if you want to see top notch golf, Castleknock is the place to be next Saturday.

A big thank you to Jim Curley of Jones Engineering for a very generous sponsorship.
Thank you also to Paul Coughlan who has used his considerable influence in attracting Ireland’s champion amateur golfers to attend.

Big names in attendance will be:
Rob Moran ( current Irish international / 2021 Ulster Strokeplay Champion)

Rob Brazil ( Irish International / 2018 West of Ireland Champion)

Colm Campbell (Irish international , Former Irish Amateur & East of Ireland winner

Jake Whelan ( 2021 Mullingar scratch cup Winner / Leinster Interpro )

This is a great opportunity for all members and Especially Juniors and their parents to enjoy an exhibition of Ireland’s great amateur golfers.

Captain’s Prize 4th September

Photo’s from the course and the prize presentation

Field for Captain’s Prize 2021

Inter-Club

Captain’s Prize

Captains’ Drive-In

President’s Prize Winners All

——————

President’s Weekend 17th July

Winners:

President Prize for Men: Paul Myler in a 3 way tie and winning on countback with 41 points.

President Prize for Ladies: Kay Murray had a comfortable win with 41 points.

President’s Prize for 5 Day: Stephen Lynch had a round of a lifetime bringing in 44 points.

President’s Prize  

Below is the planned schedule for the President’s Prize but of course there may be disruption to our planned programme due to current covid-19 restrictions.

Important

Please note that to win the President’s prize you must have entered 4 qualifying club competitions (i.e. weekend competitions) in the previous 12 months.

• Timesheet for President’s Prize will be populated by the Competition Secretary .
• There is no planned dinner but casual dining will be available after your round of golf. Burgers will be available as usual at the 9^th.

Looking forward to meeting up with you all on the 17^th.

Regards, Jack

SENIOR CUP (Area Quarter Final) 9th July

Another big win yesterday for our Senior cup team of -Paul, Ruairi, Alan, Dara and Ian- over a strong Baltray side.

Coming down the 17th fairway at 2-2, the game was very much in the balance with both golfers giving as good as they got. From very good drives both the combatants struck excellent irons into about 9 feet and 4 feet (shown in photo). Paul putted first and from where we stood it looked like it was missing on the high side until close to the hole it caught the slope and found its way home. A great cheer went up from the large crowd as Coughlan raised his fist in triumph.

So the bandwagon rolls on, next up is Laytown and Bettystown in the Area Semi finals and if I were you, I wouldn’t miss it.

July Medal

Well done to Michael McNiffe who won the July medal after countback with a great net score of 68 playing off a handicap of 15. Losing out on the countback were Declan Murray and Michael Kenny also with 68s.

David Coughlan had the lowest gross score with a 70.

Interclub Week ending 11th July

More good Inter-club results again this week with the Metropolitian Cup team together with the Pierce Purcell and the Mixed Foursomes teams all winning handsomely.

Dear Members,

The Vice Captains’ Prizes (Jim Reynolds & Margo O’Donoghue) which took place last Saturday was a great success. A big thank you to the 160+ members who played in the competition to make it the successful day that it was.

Many congratulations to all the winners, in particular to both Freddie Smith and Patricia McCormack, who won the VCs prizes with magnificent scores of 42 points and 44 points respectively. Well done Freddie and Patricia. 

We will be in touch with all the prize winners shortly to make arrangements for them to receive their prizes.

Again congratulation to all the prize winners and thanks to all who played on the day.

Regards                                

Jim & Margo

Vice Captains

JIMMY BRUEN Sunday 27th June

Interclub success continued on Sunday when the Jimmy Bruen team overcame Royal Dublin by 3 matches to two on a gloriously sunny and warm afternoon. There were a good group of fans at both venues and those at Royal Dublin were treated to a superb fairway bunker shot by Marty Cahill to a couple of feet on the 17th for the match  

BARTON CUP on Saturday 26th June

Another great display by our lads against Luttrellstown -who must be sick at the sight of us. Winning the 3 matches at home was enough to secure the tie and it was great to see Karl and Mick introduce some young blood into the team which bodes well for the future. Round 2 is away to Royal Dublin who got a Bye in the 1st round. 

SENIOR CUP   

A new look Senior Cup team (Paul, Dara, Alan, Ruairi and Sam) won a very tight game in Dunshaughlin tonight with Dara sinking a 3 foot putt on the 19th for a well deserved 3/2 victory over the Black Bush side. Dara having come back from 3 down with 5 to play for his memorable win. The Quarter Final of the Leinster North Section will be against Co. Louth. Date to be decided shortly. 

Round 2 on Thursday 24th at 5.30pm with The Black Bush, 3 matches away and 2 at home.

The Senior Cup team of Paul and David Coughlan, Ian O’Connell, Alan Geraghty and Jamie Kiely won their 1^st round match 4-1 against Balcarrick last Wednesday.

This week’s Inter Club Menu

JUNIOR CUP   

2nd Round

Winning our 2 matches at home, we clinched victory when Karl won the 17th away by 3/1 to drive us into the next round against the winners of Royal Dublin and Sutton….bring it on!!

The Junior Cup Team of Jason Marks, Stewart Banks, Karl Craven, Brian Fitzpatrick and Martin Cahill won a trilling encounter against a strong Hollywood Lakes team on Saturday with Martin sinking the winning putt on the 19^th at Ballyboughill.

Junior Cup 2nd Round versus Luttrellstown
Confirmed for next Tuesday 22nd.

2 games in Castleknock starting at 5.20 and 3 games in Luttrellstown starting at 5.50

BARTON SHIELD 

Result: Some excellent golf played in both venues with Forrest Little coming out on top in the later stages.

Thursday 17th June: If you want to see real good golf then the place to be is in either Castleknock or Forrest Little where our best golfers will play in the Barton Shield. The format is Foursomes and kick off in both venues is 5pm. Try to be there.

Our men at home are Paul Coughlan and Ruairi Kennelly and Ian O’Connell and Alan Geraghty take the away leg.

ALL IRELAND 4 BALL

Wednesday 16th June: The All Ireland 4 ball team take on our near neighbours Luttrellstown in the local derby. Word from the camp is suggesting that Damien and Keith have put together a strong and relatively young squad to avenge the drubbing we received the last time we met some years ago. The lads are hoping for a strong turnout of fans to drive the team on. There are 3 matches away and 2 at home and the first group tee off at 4pm.

Castleknock won 3/2

JUNE MEDAL

Well done to Keith Delaney who won the June medal with a brilliant net score of 62 playing off a handicap of 22. I believe that 62 is the lowest winning score for a medal in Castleknock since it opened in 1995.

Derek O’Neill with a great 65 and his son Jack (a Junior) with 69 filled 2^nd and 3^rd positions while the in-form Mike Gorman was 4^th.

CLUB MATCH PLAY

The Club Match play Championships are in full swing at the moment. For those involved, please remember that the 28^th June is the final day to complete round 1. There can be no extensions.

Club Match play 2020

The long delayed finals of the 2020 match play were finally decided a while ago.

In the singles, Mike Gorman beat Danny Cole and in the doubles Joe Craven and Francis Hughes beat Brian Smyth and David Kealy

More than a dozen years later, Georgia men’s golf coach Chris Haack still remembers what Brian Harman said to him as he walked off the 15th hole at the Inverness Club in Toledo, Ohio.

Harman, a senior and the Bulldogs’ top player, was battling Rickie Fowler in a back-and-forth match that would decide which team would advance to the semifinals of the 2009 NCAA championship.

On the 15th hole, Fowler two-putted for par. Harman had to make an 8-footer to remain 1 down in the match. He drained the putt. When Harman looked up, he noticed that Fowler and Oklahoma State Cowboys coach Mike McGraw were already walking toward the 16th tee box, leaving him to walk back across the green to retrieve the pin.

“That just fries me,” Harman told Haack as he walked off the 15th green. “I’m about to whip his ass.”

Both players made birdie putts outside 15 feet on the 16th hole. On the 17th, Harman made another birdie, while Fowler’s try lipped out. On the 18th, Fowler hit his approach shot to about 30 feet. Harman’s ball landed 8 feet from the hole. Fowler missed his birdie attempt, and Harman sank his for a third straight birdie to win the match.

“That was one of the best matches I’ve ever seen,” said PGA Tour player Harris English, one of Harman’s teammates at Georgia. “I wish it had been on TV or someone had a video of it. He found something to piss him off, and a pissed-off Brian Harman is nobody you want to mess with on the golf course.”

While Harman might have stunned the golf world by capturing the 151st Open Championship at Royal Liverpool Golf Club on Sunday, Haack, English and others who have known him since his junior golf and college days had been waiting for him to win something big. They probably didn’t think he would finish 13 under and win the Claret Jug by 6 strokes, which tied for the second-largest margin of victory by an American golfer in the storied tournament’s history. Tiger Woods won by 8 at St. Andrews in Scotland in 2000.

“He had such a great pedigree,” Haack said of Harman. “He was always a great player and very competitive. But I think the one thing that has eluded him was just getting to the winner’s circle probably a lot more times than he would have liked. He’s certainly put himself in contention with all those top-10s.

“This is more of what I thought I might see at some point. I think as he has gotten older and wiser, he is probably playing smarter and seemed to have a good game plan all week.”

An English fan delivered Harman the motivation he needed during Saturday’s third round. After Harman made bogeys on two of the first four holes, the man told him, “Harman, you don’t have the stones for this.”

“That helped,” Harman said.

In Sunday’s final round, he had bogeys on two of the first five holes and his lead was reduced to 3. But then he made back-to-back birdies and added two more on the back nine.

“He’s always had a chip on his shoulder, absolutely,” PGA Tour player J.T. Poston said. “That’s what makes him good. He just goes out there and he’s like, ‘I don’t care how I’m going to do it, but I’m going to beat you.'”

Harman, 36, is only the third left-handed player to win The Open, joining Bob Charles (1963) and Phil Mickelson (2013).

Growing up on a golf course in Savannah, Georgia, Harman dreamed of winning not The Open but a green jacket at Augusta National Golf Club.

“You grow up in Georgia, it’s all the Masters,” Harman said. “It’s proximity. But I came here and I was like, ‘Wow, man, this is unbelievable.’ The fans are incredible. Everyone understands golf over here. It was just a delight to play.”

Harman’s father was a dentist, his mother a chemist. Neither was a golfer. After Harman started playing the game with other kids, he persuaded his mother to take him to see legendary instructor Jack Lumpkin, the director of instruction at Sea Island Resort on the Georgia coast. Lumpkin, who had learned under Claude Harmon (Butch’s father), liked what he saw from the 11-year-old. He told him to come back every six months.

The first time Sea Island resident Davis Love III saw Harman play, he was throwing clubs in a junior tournament. PGA Tour pro Brendon Todd, his teammate at Georgia, remembers competing against him in a junior tournament in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Todd was 17 and two years older than Harman.

“He was the most talented, angry kid I’d seen that point,” Todd said. “I remember walking off the golf course being like, ‘If that guy can just calm down a little bit, he’s going to be out-of-this-world good. He was just a stud.”

Harman did, and he was. He won the 2003 U.S. Junior Amateur, becoming only the third left-handed winner of a United States Golf Association event in its 108-year history. He was ranked the No. 1 amateur in the world. In 2005, he was the youngest player to ever compete on an American Walker Cup team. He was foursome partners with Anthony Kim and had a 2-0-1 record.

Poston said PGA Tour players have talked about how Harman was one of the few junior players who could have turned pro and had success without playing in college.

“He was that sharp and developed,” Poston said.

When Harman joined the University of Georgia’s golf team in 2007, then-senior Kevin Kisner couldn’t believe how talented the freshman was. He recalls Harman hitting at least one flag during nearly every practice round they played together.

“It was incredible how good he could hit it when he was 17,” Kisner said. “I was like, ‘This guy is going to kill everybody.’ It didn’t even faze him how good he was hitting it. I joke to him all the time that he was better when he was 17 than he is now.”

Harman probably never reached his full potential at Georgia, winning two tournaments in his four seasons with the Bulldogs.

“I had success,” Harman said. “Like I had the pedigree. Then I got to college and it just kind of sputtered a little bit. I just didn’t keep up with the progression.”

Harman has been a good but not great PGA Tour player. Before this week, he had won twice on the tour and earned about $30 million. He tied for second at the 2017 U.S. Open and for sixth at last year’s Open Championship at St. Andrews in Scotland. Since the start of the 2017-18 season, he had 29 top-10 finishes on tour, the most of any player without a victory.

“My pro career has been really good at times and not good at times,” he said.

• _{Ryder Cup captain Zach Johnson, a friend and mentor, calls Harman a “gritty” golfer who plays to his strengths on the greens.}

In addition to Lumpkin, Harman found two other mentors at Sea Island: Love, a 21-time winner on the PGA Tour, including the 1997 PGA Championship, and two-time major winner Zach Johnson. They’re among several players who live and train on the island.

They worked to help Harman control his emotions on the course.

“He was always passionate and had a temper,” Love said. “But you’re not going to be Rory McIlroy or Jon Rahm or Brian Harman unless you have a little bit of a chip on your shoulder and confidence and cockiness, and he’s certainly got that. He always felt like others got more attention than him, whether he was one of the Georgia Bulldogs or the Sea Island guys, but he’s definitely been one of the best talents we’ve had around here.”

Johnson, the Ryder Cup captain, saw a lot of his game in Harman’s.

“We’re both just gritty,” Johnson said. “We both don’t care how far the ball goes off the tee. We rely on our strengths. We don’t try to manipulate our games just because of what we witness with other players or whatever outside factors might surface.

“His game is really simple: The ball goes straight, might fall right, and he’s a really, really good putter. I think he’s a great reader of the greens.”

A couple of years ago, Harman started working with Justin Parsons, an instructor from Northern Ireland, who had coached English, Patton Kizzire, Louis Oosthuizen and others. Harman also continued working with Lumpkin, who passed away in February 2022. Harman named his son, Jack, after Lumpkin.

At 5-foot-7 and 150 pounds, Harman is one of the smallest players on tour. He doesn’t hit his tee shots as far as players like McIlroy and Cameron Young, but he isn’t exceptionally short, either. Parsons knew Harman had an exceptional short game and was one of the best putters on tour. Parsons convinced him to quit worrying about distance to become a better iron player.

“We’ve worked really hard for a couple of years to get him more on top of the golf ball to make him a better iron player,” Parsons said. “He’s always been a really good driver of the ball. But his iron play hasn’t been quite up to the standard to where he was going to be able to consistently do what he was wanting to do.”

All aspects of Harman’s game were on display at Royal Liverpool. He led the field in driving accuracy, hitting 75% of fairways, and averaged 285.4 yards off the tee. He hit 66.7% of greens and needed only 1.5 putts per hole, which was second among players who made the cut. Six years and 77 days since his last victory at the 2017 Wells Fargo Championship, it all came together again at The Open.

“I’ve always had a self-belief that I could do something like this,” Harman said. “It’s just when it takes so much time it’s hard not to let your mind falter, like maybe I’m not winning again. I’m 36 years old. Game is getting younger. All these young guys coming out, hit it a mile, and they’re all ready to win. Like when is it going to be my turn again?

“It’s been hard to deal with. I think someone mentioned that I’ve had more top-10s than anyone since 2017, so that’s a lot of times where you get done, you’re like, ‘Damn it, man, I had that one.’ It just didn’t happen for whatever reason. I don’t know why this week, but I’m very thankful that it was this week.”

Harman said he planned on drinking Guinness out of the Claret Jug on Sunday night. He’ll fly to Syracuse, New York, on Monday to see his wife, Kelly, and their three kids, who are spending time with his in-laws. At some point, Harman, an avid outdoors man, will return to his farm in south Georgia. There’s a new 105-horsepower tractor waiting for him. When a reporter asked how much he’d spent on the tractor, he declined to say.

“I haven’t told my wife how much I spent on it yet,” Harman joked.

Fortunately for Harman, he collected a $3 million winner’s check. He moved to No. 10 in the Official World Golf Ranking, his highest ranking ever, and is expected to be third in the U.S. Ryder Cup team points standings. The top six players in the standings after the BMW Championship on Aug. 20 will automatically qualify for the American team that will compete against Europe at Marco Simone Golf & Country Club outside Rome on Sept. 29-Oct. 1. Harman will more than likely be on the team.

https://blog.hole19golf.com/how-to-lose-friends-on-the-golf-course/?utm_source=H19Email&utm_medium=NL&utm_content=20220811Newsletter#:~:text=HOW%20TO%20LOSE,for%20an%20earful.

SMILING THROUGH THE TEARS

David Feherty

After losing a son, Feherty relies on his support team to live a complex life of his own.

By John Feinstein

June 26, 2018

——————————————————————–

It’s a rainy night in Georgia, and David Feherty is on fire.

He has been on stage at Atlanta Symphony Hall for almost two hours, and those in the audience of about 1,200 have only stopped laughing when one of his stories brings them to tears of hysteria.

“Tiger Woods is funnier than people know,” Feherty says at one point. “When I was walking with him for CBS, he used to pull the brim of his hat down low so the cameras couldn’t pick up what he was saying—he was convinced everyone watching could read lips.

“One day he says to me, ‘Hey, Farty,’—that’s what he called me—’do you know what you call a black guy flying an airplane?’

“I said, ‘No, what?’

“And he said, ‘A pilot, you f—— racist.’ ”

People can’t stay in their seats, they are laughing so hard. One woman, who has been letting out loud whoops at the punch line of every story, doubles over, unable to stop laughing.

Twenty-four nights a year, Feherty does his act—three nights a week on eight occasions. He does an hour and 40 minutes of straight stand-up, pausing only occasionally for brief sips of iced tea. The stand-up is his life story—told as only he can tell it. It includes a good deal of bathroom humour, plenty of profanity and some poignant moments, especially when he talks about his parents and his wife, Anita.

After the stand-up, he pulls a chair out from behind the desk that is designed to look like the set of his TV show, “Feherty,” and does 20 minutes of Q&A with his audience.

On this night, the Saturday of Masters Week, he is asked—predictably—why he isn’t in Augusta.

“I’d rather be here with you,” he says. Then he points out that he’s no longer with CBS, which has the broadcast rights. What he doesn’t mention is that Golf Channel, which is part of NBC, his current employer, would love to have him there during the week to add some much-needed humour to the shows it does before and after live coverage.

Except that Feherty has an agreement that he doesn’t have to work Masters Week.

“I never felt comfortable there,” he says. “Never had a problem with anyone or anything. I just didn’t feel I could be myself. I was in the clubhouse once in 19 years when I went up to have lunch. That was it.”

Which means he’s telling the truth when he tells his Atlanta audience, he’d rather be with them. That doesn’t mean he isn’t terrified every minute of the evening.

‘THE SWEETEST BOY YOU WOULD EVER MEET’

Very few subjects are out-of-bounds in Feherty’s routine. He talks about his parents, about his first wife, about Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus and Ken Venturi and Tiger Woods. The only person he doesn’t joke about is Anita.

And there is one subject he won’t go near, if only because he knows if he did, he wouldn’t get to the end of the act.

Shey.

“He was the sweetest boy you would ever meet,” he says very softly—his voice is rarely louder than a whisper when he talks about him. “He liked people, and people liked him. He had that kind of personality. He was working in a restaurant for a while and doing very well because he had a way with people. He was moving up the ladder there.

“But he got it in his head that he wanted to start a ticket-reselling business. He was going to compete with StubHub. He was a naïve kid in many ways. Lost, really, just lost.”

Feherty shakes his head. “Can you imagine that career move? He was lost in so many ways. Reminded me a lot of me. Which is just one of the reasons I can’t help but feel devastated and guilty about what happened to him.”

On July 29 of last year—Shay’s 29th birthday—the phone rang early at the Feherty home in Dallas. Anita answered. It was Rory, David’s younger son. Shey, his older brother by four years with Feherty’s first wife, Caroline, had died that morning of an apparent overdose at their mother’s home. The coroner would later determine that a mixture of cocaine and alcohol had killed him.

Anita walked the phone into the bedroom where David was still sleeping.

“You need to take this phone call,” she said softly, handing him the phone as he slowly came awake. “It’s Rory.”

It was Rory who then told his father the news. It was stunning, but not completely shocking. On July 4, Anita had gotten a text from Shey saying he needed to go back to rehab. He had never gotten there.

For a year, Feherty had been told by professionals that he needed to stay away from Shey, that he was enabling his drug habit by giving him money. He and Anita had agreed the night before that they would call him the next day—Saturday—to wish him a happy birthday.

“The truth is, I’d broken down on several occasions and given him money again,” Feherty says. “He was so sweet, and I couldn’t say no to him. Plus, like all of us addicts, he was a very good liar. He convinced me the money wasn’t for drugs. I’m sure I knew deep down he was lying, but I wanted to believe he was really on the way to coming out on the other side.

“Not talking to him regularly, not seeing him, was painful. But this …”

He stops, unable to go on.

Feherty’s memory of the rest of the day is blurred. Anita’s is not. “David, Rory and I went to the funeral home,” she says. “Rory did the best he could to take charge. David couldn’t speak—literally. He couldn’t move his mouth. His face was frozen. He was completely paralyzed emotionally. He zoned out completely. I think he had to.”

Somehow, the family has moved on—as best is possible—through the tragedy. Feherty was diagnosed with clinical depression and bipolar disorder several years ago. Not surprisingly, the depression has worsened since Shay’s death.

“It doesn’t get better,” he says. “It just gets farther away.”

Fortunately, Anita instantly recognizes when he is, as she puts it, “heading to a dark place,” and will force him to leave the house—go to lunch with her—anything to change his mind-set.

“He never wants to go,” she says. “And then when we get home, he thanks me for making him do it.”

Rory McIlroy, who has become close to Feherty in recent years, puts it another way: “David does best,” he says, “when he’s thinking about anything but David. It’s why he’s so good with helping others but struggles at times to help himself.”

SUPPORT FROM PRESIDENTS, SOLDIERS AND THE GOLF WORLD

Feherty got through the tragedy, he says, because of the overwhelming outpouring of support he received from his family, from friends like McIlroy and from people around the world whose lives he has touched—often at times without knowing it. Wounded soldiers he’d visited or joined for golf or pheasant hunting (an annual trip Tom Watson helps put together in North Dakota), not to mention the golf world.

Three former presidents reached out to him. “President Bush [43] and President Obama both sent me beautiful notes,” he says. “President Clinton called. He was unbelievable. Kept telling me what a good dad he knew I was and that if there was anything he could do to help … ”

That was the recurring theme: Anything I can do to help. Watson spent hours with him on the phone and in person. “I just let him talk,” Watson says. “There’s really nothing you can say in that situation. You can’t bring back life. So, you just listen and let him know you’re there—always there.”

McIlroy remembers feeling helpless. “I had no idea what to say or do,” he says. “I finally fell back on just, ‘Whatever you need.’ ”

It all kept Feherty going and keeps him going now.

The pain, he knows, will never completely go away. He has four other children: Rory, who is now 26; Anita’s two sons, Fred, 35, and Karl, 33; and Erin, their 19-year-old daughter who is finishing her freshman year at Oklahoma.

Rory is a member of the Texas National Guard and deployed to Djibouti in May. “I couldn’t be more proud of him,” Feherty says, “and I couldn’t possibly be more frightened.” His eyes cloud. “I can’t even think about the possibility of losing another son. Just can’t think about it.”

Shey ‘was lost in so many ways. Reminded me a lot of me.’ —David Feherty

‘SHE SAVED MY LIFE’

It’s an hour before Feherty has to become Feherty for an audience. He has not paid any attention to the third round of the Masters that afternoon because he knows nothing will be decided until the next day.

He is stretched out on a couch in a tiny room in the basement of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra building. There’s no Internet service, and only by walking down the hall is there cell phone coverage. Feherty knows he’ll hear what’s happening in Augusta soon enough.

There’s a piano against the wall on the far side of the room that Feherty could no doubt play quite well if he were so inclined.

He’s not. He’s tired and eager to get home to Dallas later that night. He’s already been in Little Rock on Thursday and Biloxi, Miss., on Friday.

He eats a few bites of a greasy hamburger and swigs from a bottle of water.

“Right now, I’m almost frozen with terror thinking about what I have to do tonight,” he says. “It’s that way every time I do this. I’m very aware of my ADD, and I worry about losing my place in the middle of a story and standing there with a blank look on my face. I’m absolutely convinced it can happen.”

He has been doing the show for four years. Has that ever happened?

“Lose my place? All the time,” he says. “Totally frozen and unable to go on? Close, but no. Not yet.”

The show was conceived by Brad Jones, a young promoter who, five years ago, convinced Feherty to come to his hometown of London, Ontario, to speak at a corporate event. When Feherty was finished with his talk, Jones asked him: “Have you ever considered doing a stand-up act?”

“Isn’t that what I just did?” Feherty answered.

“What blew me away,” Jones says, “is that nobody had ever approached him with the idea before.”

Jones put together a proposal, and Feherty unveiled the Feherty Off-Tour act in November 2014. Each year, the number of performances has increased and the venues have gotten bigger.

‘I think that his genuine kindness has given him a few more mulligans in life than most people get.’ —Anita Feherty

Feherty, who will be 60 in August, has Anita and Andrew Elkin, his agent at Creative Artists Agency, handle all his finances. He and Anita have been married for 22 years after meeting on a blind date in Dallas in the summer of 1995. Each had been through a failed marriage that had produced two children.

“She saved my life,” Feherty says. “I mean, literally. My life was an absolute mess when we met. I was trying to raise two little boys [Shey and Rory] alone in a two-bedroom apartment. I was addicted to alcohol, cocaine, marijuana, painkillers and just about anything else you could name. I was running like Forrest Gump and weighed about 150 pounds. When Anita and I went on our first date, I was so thin she thought I was HIV-positive. The first date lasted about half an hour before she walked out after I had reached over, put my straw in her drink and drank from it. Fortunately for me, for some reason, she agreed to go on a second date—to a baseball game.

“I didn’t know the rules of baseball. Neither did she, but I kept asking her questions, and she tried to answer them. Finally, she stood up and said, ‘Would you like something to eat or drink? A hot dog or a beer?’ It was the nicest thing anybody had said to me for years. Honestly. I sat there and thought, I think I’m in love with this woman.”

Anita Schneider had to be convinced to go on that second date. She was a successful interior designer who ran her business from home so she had flexibility to take care of her boys, who were 12 and 10 at the time. She wasn’t looking to remarry. But she was talked into meeting Feherty by a mutual friend, Gary Knott. They were the same age, they were both divorced, and they both had two boys. Worth a try, she figured.

The first night they met, she wasn’t impressed.

“It did cross my mind that he might be HIV-positive,” she says. “Remember, this is when people were terrified by the epidemic. He was much too skinny. Plus, he showed up drunk. When he put his straw in my drink, that was it—I had to leave.”

Through Knott, Feherty asked for one more chance. Knott told Anita that David had promised he’d show up sober. He did—30 minutes early. Anita thought it was charming that he was trying so hard. In the end, though, it wasn’t his humour, which was apparent, or even his charm.

“It was his kindness,” she says. “His kindness outshines everything else. I think that his genuine kindness has given him a few more mulligans in life than most people get.”

Feherty moved in with Anita before the end of the year, and when Shey and Rory were with him—he had split-custody with his first wife—they stayed there, too. He went to South Africa early in 1996 to play the Sun City Tour, one of the few places he still had playing privileges. When he came back a month later, he walked into Anita’s garage, and when she came out to greet him, he said, “Please marry me.”

She said yes, and they were married May 31, 1996. Life got better for Feherty—slowly.

“I haven’t had to write a check for 22 years,” he says. “I have no idea what I’m worth or what anyone is paying me. Anita has allowed me to just do the things I can do without worrying about any of the other stuff. Much more important, though, when the boys and I moved in with her and her two kids, we became a family. That was life-changing.”

So was his career change, from good golfer to unique TV presence. To hear Feherty talk now, you might think he never made a cut as a professional golfer and that he can barely remember which end of a golf club to hold.

“Actually,” he says, “I’m not always certain about that nowadays. I’ve forgotten a lot of things.”

What he does remember is turning pro at 17 after deciding he wasn’t meant to be an opera singer, which is what he aspired to do for most of his childhood.

“I had a good voice,” he says. “I trained and worked at it. But I knew I wasn’t going to be good enough. Of course, I wasn’t good enough at golf, either. I was like a 5-handicap at the time, but I figured I’d try it. I went to work at a club north of London [Mid Herts, where he was paid $10 a week] but came home after a few months because I missed my mom [Vi]. That’s when I went to work at Holywood.”

Holywood Golf Club is most famous as the place where Rory McIlroy learned to play and where his father, Gerry, tended bar and taught his son the game. In his stand-up, Feherty points out that he got to Holywood in 1976, “years before the little bastard was born.”

Feherty adores McIlroy, who adores him. “He is absolutely a product of his parents,” says Feherty, who got to know Gerry and Rose McIlroy while at Holywood. “He hasn’t been changed by fame or fortune. He’s just one of the most thoroughly decent people I’ve ever met. I had nothing to do with him becoming who he is, but I’m just so damn proud of him.”

McIlroy says there’s nothing he wouldn’t do for Feherty because he knows there’s nothing Feherty wouldn’t do for him. He often tells the story about Feherty coming to find him after his Sunday meltdown at the Masters in 2011. As soon as Feherty got off the air, he drove to where Rory was staying. In Feherty’s version of the story, he was blown away by McIlroy’s ability to keep the loss in perspective. In McIlroy’s version, he couldn’t believe how quickly Feherty helped him forget what had happened.

“Once he decided I was really OK, he just sat down with me and my friends and basically did a ‘Feherty’ show for us right there,” McIlroy says. “An hour after he got there, we were all literally falling off our chairs, we were laughing so hard.

“He’s a complex and wonderful individual,” McIlroy says. “Anita calls it kindness; she’s right. I’d add compassionate. Kind, compassionate, brilliant—and very, very hard on himself at times.”

‘Tom [Watson] looked at me and said, “You’re not well.” He was right, of course—I wasn’t. I asked him later what it was he saw, and he said, “I was looking at myself a few years earlier.” ’ —David Feherty

A MARRIAGE AND A CAREER CRUMBLE

From Holywood, Feherty moved on to Balmoral Golf Club, where he worked for Fred Daly, the 1947 Open champion and the only Northern Irishman to win it until Darren Clarke in 2011 and McIlroy three years later.

“I was playing with Fred one day, and he hit a ball into a bunker, blasted out and hobbled onto the green,” Feherty says in the act. “He said, ‘I’m really having trouble getting out of bunkers as I get older.’ I said, ‘Fred, you just hit a fine shot there.’ He shook his head and said, ‘I don’t have any trouble getting the ball out of the bunker, I have trouble getting my body out.’ ”

Balmoral was a largely Catholic club, but there were also Protestant members because it was set between a Catholic neighbourhood and a Protestant neighbourhood. “There were never really any problems,” says Feherty, who grew up in Bangor going to a Protestant church three times a week with his family but now describes himself as an agnostic. “People just came there to play golf. But the clubhouse did get blown up twice while I was there.”

Phone calls warning people to leave a building were taken very seriously during The Troubles. Feherty was on the golf course once when a bomb went off. “Very loud pop is all I remember,” he says.

Feherty won five times on the European Tour after getting his card in 1980 and was on the European Ryder Cup team for the famous/infamous War by the Shore at Kiawah in 1991. There, he beat Payne Stewart, 2 and 1, and fondly remembers thinking that he and Seve Ballesteros had truly bonded through the week as teammates­—”until I saw him in the locker room a week later in Stuttgart and he called me Donald,” Feherty says. “I was crushed.”

What was truly crushing Feherty during that period was his first marriage, to Caroline DeWit, a beauty queen he had met while playing in South Africa. Shey was born in 1988 and Rory in 1992. In 1993, Caroline decided she wanted to relocate to Dallas; Feherty believed it was because of another man.

Even so, he followed, if only because he didn’t want to be apart from his sons. He had to go to PGA Tour qualifying school to earn playing privileges. He succeeded but never really adapted to playing in America. He did, however, play well enough at Turnberry in 1994 to have a real chance to win the Open Championship. He trailed co-leaders Fuzzy Zoeller and Brad Faxon by two shots after three rounds and shot 70 on the final day, which left him tied for fourth behind Nick Price, who shot 66 to win.

“Looking back now, I don’t think I wanted to win,” Feherty says. “I had a few very makable putts around the turn that if I’d made, I’d have had a very real chance. But I missed them. I’m not saying I tried to miss, I’m just saying subconsciously I just didn’t believe I was good enough to win the Open. I didn’t want the responsibility. I’d had a chance in ’89 [T-6 at Troon], too, and the same thing had happened.”

GETTING A LIFELINE

By 1995, Caroline had left Feherty, and he was about to lose his playing privileges on the PGA Tour. He was drunk or high more often than not and had no idea what he was going to do.

Then, Anita and CBS came into his life—specifically, in the case of CBS, Gary McCord. The two men had never met, but McCord was in the locker room during an opening-round rain delay at The International in 1995. He was there to find players who would come on-camera and kill time for USA, which had the Thursday-Friday cable rights.

“I was there for a while,” says McCord, now one of Feherty’s closest friends. “David was in there telling stories. I knew who he was but didn’t know him. People were falling over laughing while he talked. When we went off-air, I said to him, ‘You ever do any TV?’ He said no. I said, ‘Would you like to?’ He said, “I don’t know.’ I said, ‘Well, if you want to, I’ll be in the tower at 15 tomorrow from 2-5, and if you want to, come on up there.’ I did it as much to keep myself from getting bored because I figured if I had someone to listen to, I’d have to pay attention.”

The next day, when he got to the tower, McCord told long-time CBS golf producer Frank Chirkinian that he’d invited Feherty.

“What?” Chirkinian screamed into McCord’s headset. “No way. No way you two f—— guys are going to be together on-air.”

Chirkinian knew Feherty’s reputation for blunt humour.

McCord didn’t blink. “First, it was cable, not the network,” he says. “It was Friday afternoon, small audience. Frank liked to yell and grumble; that’s what he did. Plus, I didn’t even know if David would show.”

Feherty showed. And he blew McCord away. “He just went to places with his answers to questions I never imagined anyone could go,” McCord says. “As we walked down the steps from the tower, I said to him, ‘This is what you’re going to be doing next.’ I knew he wasn’t playing well and was going to need something soon. So, I said, ‘When the time comes, please call us.’ As in CBS, not me.”

Months later, CBS was forced to fire Ben Wright after his politically incorrect comments about why women—in his opinion—struggled to play golf well.

Feherty was sitting in a hotel bar, drinking vodka and Gatorade—”because I was still an athlete,” he says—when he saw CBS producers Lance Barrow and Rick Gentile approaching.

“When they said, ‘CBS,’ I thought they were from ’60 Minutes’ and they were doing a story on golfers and drugs,” he says. “Who better than me to talk to? I was terrified.”

Barrow and Gentile offered Feherty a three-tournament contract to take Wright’s spot for the rest of the year. Feherty was hired full time in 1997.

Getty Images (2) Feherty with his contemporaries on the European Tour (left) during his playing days, which included competing for Europe in the 1991 Ryder Cup.

Having a job he was very good at and a happy marriage didn’t mean that Feherty got sober overnight. When Erin was a pre-kindergartner, Anita came home after dropping her from school one morning and told David if he didn’t get sober, she was leaving him.

He did. For a while. But never for good. He drank so much on a trip to Barbados early in 2006 that he got alcohol poisoning. After that, he and Anita went to an addiction therapist.

Still, he was fighting a losing battle. Then, that summer, he was doing the play-by-play for an exhibition match on Prince Edward Island between Tom Watson and Jack Nicklaus.

Feherty has told the story often about that being a turning point in his life.

“Tom looked at me and said, ‘You’re not well,’ ” Feherty says. “He was right, of course—I wasn’t. I asked him later what it was he saw, and he said, ‘I was looking at myself a few years earlier.’ ”

It wasn’t as if Watson sprinkled magic dust on Feherty and he was cured. Anything but. Feherty wasn’t willing or able—in Anita’s opinion—to handle rehab. Watson found him an AA group in Dallas, and even though it was difficult for Feherty, he went to a meeting every day. Until one day, he didn’t.

“I’d been riding my bike to the meetings every morning,” he says. “That day, I just kept going.”

He was north of McKinney—about 35 miles from Dallas—when he finally called Anita to come and get him.

“I don’t do well in groups,” he says. “I like being alone. When I’m home, I don’t answer the door and I don’t answer the phone.”

“David is OK in a group if it’s on his terms,” Anita says.

“Fortunately, the bike became his addiction. That’s when he got sober.”

Feherty would be up before dawn, ride the bike for several hours, stop for coffee with friends and come home too exhausted to go to any dark places or to think about drinking. “When he wasn’t riding the bike,” Anita says, “he was working on it.”

Unfortunately, he was hit by cars on three occasions on the bicycle. The first accident crushed his left arm so badly he had to give up playing golf. The third one forced him to give up the bike.

But, with a lot of therapy and support, he came out on the other end—sober. If Anita ever thinks things might go bad again, she’d call Watson.

“He was clearly struggling, physically and emotionally,” Watson says of the Prince Edward Island weekend. “I said, ‘I see you. I’ve been where you are. Let me help.’ He was very receptive. It wasn’t an easy process, but he got through it.”

Watson says their friendship really took off when they went to Iraq together in 2007 as part of a trip to entertain the troops, put together by Rick Kell, co-founder of Troops First Foundation, a group Feherty has been extremely involved with for years. When Feherty became an American citizen in 2010, one of the people who flew to Dallas for the ceremony was Watson. In 2016, after Watson played his final round at the Masters, his family threw a party with about 60 friends invited. The star of the evening was Feherty, who was funny and poignant.

“When I was in the abyss, at the bottom of a well I thought I’d never climb out of,” Feherty said that night, “I looked up for help, and the face looking down at me and the hand reaching for me was Tom Watson.”

The first person to tell you that Feherty still struggles with his addictions every day is Feherty. He takes 14 pills a day—seven of them psyche meds—to help him deal with his depression, bipolar disorder and various physical maladies that will never go away.

“There isn’t a day that goes by when I’m not sad for at least part of the day,” he says. “And some days, I’m just sad all day. It’s gotten worse since Shey died. Sometimes I just start to cry and can’t stop.”

He stops there and smiles. “And yet, I love my life. I don’t see how I could possibly be any happier than I am right now.”

He left CBS at the end of his contract in 2015 and signed a deal that calls for him to do 16 of his “Feherty” shows each year for Golf Channel, NBC’s golf tournaments and various other events, like the Olympics.

NBC offered more money than CBS—a good deal more—but it wasn’t so much the money as the chance to do some things that were different—including spending some of his time in a tower rather than walking with the final group—that made the deal attractive. Add the 24 Off-Tour dates, speaking gigs, the occasional outing and events for Troops First, and he’s on the road almost nonstop.

“I need it that way,” he says. “I need to be busy. If I’m home for more than a week or so, I start to lose my mind. Most of the time, I like the work. I might be terrified on stage, but I do enjoy it. Once I stop shaking with fear.”

He isn’t exaggerating. “I can see it on stage,” Anita says. “But I also know when he’s really frightened, that’s when he’s at his best. If he’s not, he might lose focus and then, even though he’s still terrific, he’s not as good as he can be—or wants to be. He always knows, even if the audience doesn’t. He’ll come off stage and say, ‘I didn’t have it tonight.’ The crowd is out there screaming, but he knows. He always knows.”

‘There isn’t a day that goes by when I’m not sad for at least part of the day. And some days, I’m just sad all day. … Sometimes I just start to cry and can’t stop.’ —David Feherty

A SON LONGS FOR HIS DAD: ‘I MISS HIM’

The evening in Atlanta is winding down. There’s time for one more question. It’s the one everyone who has ever played golf is often asked: “What’s your dream foursome?”

“Jack Nicklaus,” Feherty says quickly. “He’s the one great player of my time I never got to play with.” He pauses a split second for applause. He’s done this before. “Annika Sorenstam,” he continues. “Never played with her, either, and I’ll never forget her first tee shot at Colonial [in a 2003 PGA Tour event], when she hit it perfectly and staggered off the tee because the pressure on her that week was so overwhelming.”

He pauses again. Not for effect or because he’s thinking, but to gather himself. “And my dad,” he finally says. “I’d like to play one last round with him.”

His voice catches. The emotion is quite real. “Happens to me every time,” he says later. Billy Feherty died in November 2016 of Alzheimer’s at the age of 91.

“I miss him,” his son says.

He’s thinking back to his childhood now, and he smiles at the memory of his parents. “They say that humour is a sixth sense if you’re Irish,” he says. “When I was a kid, humour was my defence. I was clearly ADD and wasn’t any good in school except in math and music. Humour was what kept people from making fun of me, from calling me dumb. I’m not sure where I’d be or what I’d have become without it.”

The humour is matchless. But those who know him best will tell you it is the remarkable kindness and the compassion that his wife and friends speak of that makes Feherty Feherty.

And that’s no joke.

Something to put on your ‘bucket list’.