RONAN CUNNINGHAM IS Paul McGinley and Dave Campbell is Seve Ballesteros. No, these aren’t two actors for an upcoming Ryder Cup film but rather the manager and captain of Ireland’s footgolf team who are about to take part in the European Championships.
Ireland’s six best footgolfers are going to Marbella this weekend for the Footgolf Europa Cup de Andalucia where they will be competing against 80 players from ten other countries.
Cunningham and his business partner Campbell, who run Footee, which was Ireland’s first footgolf course, have all their bases covered and aren’t just going to Spain for a jolly up (well, not entirely anyway).
“I’m the team manager so I will be doing the pairings but Dave Campbell is the captain so he will be in charge of the motivational speeches,” Cunningham laughed.
“But jokes aside, it is a serious game and we are going over there to win.”
For those unfamiliar with the sport of footgolf, the rules are the same as normal golf except instead of clubs and tiny golf balls, size 5 footballs are kicked up the fairway, onto the green, and into the giant holes.
Cunningham and Campbell have been running their footgolf course in Tallaght since the summer of 2013 and have seen it grow in popularity as a mix of students, sports teams and companies come up in droves to experience the game.
They also employ three other people besides themselves. Not bad for a venture that started out as a final year project in UCD.
The duo are the Godfathers of Irish footgolf – Cunningham even founded the Irish Footgolf Assosciation although he maintains he is more of a Michel Platini than a Sepp Blatter.
Once they discovered there was a European tournament – in Marbella, no less – they hastily organised trials to form their footgolf Ryder Cup team.
“We held trials at the end of August and 48 people showed up,” Cunningham said.
“It was thrown together at the last minute so we were pleased with the turnout and there was a lot of good players there.”
The 16-hole course in Tallaght has a par of 60, with holes ranging between par 3s, par 4s and par 5s. The two founders of the course picked themselves on their footgolf dream team but you can’t say they don’t deserve it.
Campbell has the 12-under par course record while Cunningham has shot a steady four under and since they designed the course themselves, it is fair to say that they are the two pre-eminent footgolf course designers in the country.
The tournament takes place this Saturday and Sunday and features a mix of foursomes and singles.
Cunningham even divulged some of his team’s secret strategies for the big tournament.
Par 4s: “You don’t want to be too clever with your drive. The important thing is to give yourself a good position for your shot to the green. You don’t need to go with a whopper peg off the tee.”Par 5s: “You need to get out your Big Bertha for this one because our par 5s are very long. To be honest, you would probably need to be a gaelic football goalkeeper to reach the green in two.”
Cunningham is confident that his footgolf superteam can make an impression in Marbella and there are already some big plans in the future for footgolf in Ireland.
“We have an initial agreement to host the next Footgolf Europa Cup in April and that would be brilliant,” Cunningham said.
“We would expect about 100 players to be on our course so it would be great for us.”
Everything you need to know about Footee can be found here.
