AMONG THE HAPPY folk traipsing around Augusta National last week was a delegation from Golf Ireland, whose delight culminated in pressing send on another Sunday press release congratulating Rory McIlroy on his Masters victory.
Golf Ireland can legitimately claim a small piece of the credit here, given the governing body then known as the GUI helped to subsidise the jetsetting of the early years of McIlroy’s career.
This year’s Masters was the 74th major championship played since the 2007 Open, at which Pádraig Harrington made his breakthrough. While American golfers have won 42 of these tournaments, the next most successful nation on that list is Ireland, with 12. The nearest any other country comes to Ireland’s total is South Africa, who have had four major victories in that timespan. England, Spain and Australia have each had three. McIlroy has won as many majors in the space of a year as English golfers have totalled in the last decade.
McIlroy has won half of the Irish majors, with Harrington winning three and one apiece going to Shane Lowry, Graeme McDowell, and Darren Clarke.
This record is a stunning testament to this lengthy golden age of Irish golf, as is the bare fact that there was an Irish golfer in each of the final two groups on Masters Sunday, even if things once again went horribly awry for Shane Lowry.
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McIlroy and Lowry’s consistency is such that these achievements can feel routine but that should not diminish their significance, and nor should we take them for granted, even if both have many years left in the tank as perennial contenders at the majors.
It is also unreasonable to expect every era to replicate the success of the present one: McIlroy is the great golfer of his generation, but in an Irish context he is a once-in-a-lifetime combination of talent and hard work.
But from where we stand at the moment, the next era will be a disappointment by any standard, even judged without the context of our current silver rush. Beneath McIlroy and Lowry, there is an alarming lack of depth in Irish men’s golf.
Tom McKibbin has taken his huge talents into the relative obscurity of the LIV Tour – at least for now. The downfall of the rebel circuit is now reportedly nigh, so perhaps McKibbin will soon come to prominence on the PGA Tour and pick up the major-winning slack from McIlroy and Lowry. Otherwise, the outlook is stark.
Given our national genius for the game of golf and the headline achievements of our aforementioned duo, it is a remarkable fact that there are no Irish players playing regularly on the DP World Tour this year. Conor Purcell earned a card for last year’s Tour, but promptly lost if after a bruising set of results. Being one’s only national representative on a cut-throat, globetrotting tour is immensely difficult: it’s a sufficiently lonely existence without then sitting down to dinner on your own every evening.
Purcell is back on the second-tier Challenge Tour – now known as the HotelPlanner Tour – where he is eddying about in the upper mid-table of the rankings. We are in the very early stages of the season at the moment, but as it stands Max Kennedy is the only Irish golfer in the top 30 of the rankings. Gary Hurley is 31st, with Liam Nolan 48th, Purcell 55th, Mark Power 71st, and Rowan Lester further down the list in 142nd place.
You can’t accuse Golf Ireland of not doing anything, given they continue to run their professional scheme, supporting players’ careers to the tune of around €33,000 each year.
We asked Pádraig Harrington about this lack of depth when we met him a few weeks back, and while he has been struck by it on the weeks he dips in to play on the DP World Tour, he is stumped by it. He said that all of the guys on the Challenge Tour have different styles of games, so it isn’t a case that Ireland is producing a series of one-dimensional players unsuited to the demands of the modern game.
He otherwise speculated as to the reasons why so few are breaking through: are guys staying amateur for longer or are some DP World Tour candidates choosing not to turn pro at all? Or are they lacking a mid-ranking role model? Yes, McIlroy and Lowry are doing remarkable things at the top end of the sport, but how relevant is that to the guy who needs reassurance that he can hang tough with their DP World Tour card?
Harrington then said with hope that this is merely cyclical and that in a few years’ time all would be well. Let’s wait and see on that front.
The length of elite-end careers in golf means we should have may more years to enjoy the feats of McIlroy and Lowry, and they are certainly worth enjoying, for who knows what – if anything – is to follow them.
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This is the golden age of Irish golf - but the long-term future looks much less bright
AMONG THE HAPPY folk traipsing around Augusta National last week was a delegation from Golf Ireland, whose delight culminated in pressing send on another Sunday press release congratulating Rory McIlroy on his Masters victory.
Golf Ireland can legitimately claim a small piece of the credit here, given the governing body then known as the GUI helped to subsidise the jetsetting of the early years of McIlroy’s career.
This year’s Masters was the 74th major championship played since the 2007 Open, at which Pádraig Harrington made his breakthrough. While American golfers have won 42 of these tournaments, the next most successful nation on that list is Ireland, with 12. The nearest any other country comes to Ireland’s total is South Africa, who have had four major victories in that timespan. England, Spain and Australia have each had three. McIlroy has won as many majors in the space of a year as English golfers have totalled in the last decade.
McIlroy has won half of the Irish majors, with Harrington winning three and one apiece going to Shane Lowry, Graeme McDowell, and Darren Clarke.
This record is a stunning testament to this lengthy golden age of Irish golf, as is the bare fact that there was an Irish golfer in each of the final two groups on Masters Sunday, even if things once again went horribly awry for Shane Lowry.
McIlroy and Lowry’s consistency is such that these achievements can feel routine but that should not diminish their significance, and nor should we take them for granted, even if both have many years left in the tank as perennial contenders at the majors.
It is also unreasonable to expect every era to replicate the success of the present one: McIlroy is the great golfer of his generation, but in an Irish context he is a once-in-a-lifetime combination of talent and hard work.
But from where we stand at the moment, the next era will be a disappointment by any standard, even judged without the context of our current silver rush. Beneath McIlroy and Lowry, there is an alarming lack of depth in Irish men’s golf.
Tom McKibbin has taken his huge talents into the relative obscurity of the LIV Tour – at least for now. The downfall of the rebel circuit is now reportedly nigh, so perhaps McKibbin will soon come to prominence on the PGA Tour and pick up the major-winning slack from McIlroy and Lowry. Otherwise, the outlook is stark.
Given our national genius for the game of golf and the headline achievements of our aforementioned duo, it is a remarkable fact that there are no Irish players playing regularly on the DP World Tour this year. Conor Purcell earned a card for last year’s Tour, but promptly lost if after a bruising set of results. Being one’s only national representative on a cut-throat, globetrotting tour is immensely difficult: it’s a sufficiently lonely existence without then sitting down to dinner on your own every evening.
Purcell is back on the second-tier Challenge Tour – now known as the HotelPlanner Tour – where he is eddying about in the upper mid-table of the rankings. We are in the very early stages of the season at the moment, but as it stands Max Kennedy is the only Irish golfer in the top 30 of the rankings. Gary Hurley is 31st, with Liam Nolan 48th, Purcell 55th, Mark Power 71st, and Rowan Lester further down the list in 142nd place.
You can’t accuse Golf Ireland of not doing anything, given they continue to run their professional scheme, supporting players’ careers to the tune of around €33,000 each year.
We asked Pádraig Harrington about this lack of depth when we met him a few weeks back, and while he has been struck by it on the weeks he dips in to play on the DP World Tour, he is stumped by it. He said that all of the guys on the Challenge Tour have different styles of games, so it isn’t a case that Ireland is producing a series of one-dimensional players unsuited to the demands of the modern game.
He otherwise speculated as to the reasons why so few are breaking through: are guys staying amateur for longer or are some DP World Tour candidates choosing not to turn pro at all? Or are they lacking a mid-ranking role model? Yes, McIlroy and Lowry are doing remarkable things at the top end of the sport, but how relevant is that to the guy who needs reassurance that he can hang tough with their DP World Tour card?
Harrington then said with hope that this is merely cyclical and that in a few years’ time all would be well. Let’s wait and see on that front.
The length of elite-end careers in golf means we should have may more years to enjoy the feats of McIlroy and Lowry, and they are certainly worth enjoying, for who knows what – if anything – is to follow them.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
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