Time of the month for me to try to be serious. Part of my therapy..... En route down the country last Friday I stopped off in Adare to che...
Time of the month for me to try to be serious. Part of my therapy.....
En route down the country last Friday I stopped off in Adare to check out the biggest event in the domestic professional golf calender; the Irish PGA Championship. What I saw was a bit of a wake up call.
First of all I sped past the venue, but not really by mistake. I had thought this marquee event was being held on the big Adare Manor Hotel golf course that staged the Irish Open a few years back; it was actually being staged on the par 69 Adare Manor Golf Club down the road.
That's not to knock the charming Adare Manor Golf Club for a second. It's a serious test and speaking to some of the players, they did an amazing job on the course over the championships and crucially, put their name in the hat to actually host the event when not many others wanted to.
But still it felt to me a bit like going to Glastonbury fully expecting The Rolling Stones to be on the main stage but instead finding them playing in the fringe tent in the far corner of the field. Follow @golfcentraldoc
To my untrained eye there seemed to be no link between the two courses in Adare and they don't seem to have each other's phone number either. I naively thought that since the compact Adare Manor Golf Club doesn't even have a practice area that being in the same village and all, some arrangement could be worked with the big course next door to give players access to a portion of their vast practice area. You know a neighbourly thing to help out. But that didn't seem to be an option and instead you had players in the Irish PGA Championship having to make do with some nets near the first tee. The host course did their very best according to players I spoke to, even arranging a makeshift practice area at a local sports ground. Still it all seemed sort of odd, like looking down on an empty Croke Park from a helicopter, all pristine and beautiful and then spotting Kerry and Donegal battling it out on the back pitch with nobody watching.
Surely the finest professionals golfers in the country of Ireland deserve to have their Major Championship on a major golf course with all the media, pomp and pageantry we can roll out for them? Ireland is after all the country that produced Harrington, McIlroy, Lowry and co, all of whom are contemporaries of the men that were battling it out in Adare. The talent on show was incredible. I don't know the first thing about golf politics and care less but it seems a shocking pity that the tournament couldn't be played on one of the big top five links or parkland courses in the country. The whole atmosphere just felt a bit cramped and subdued.
I'm guessing one of the reasons those bigger courses don't want to host is they sacrifice losing four days of green fee revenue; but since the championship is staged late in the year and many of those venues have 36 holes to work with, I thought they might love to have the best pros in the country come and play. And market it.
It must be tough for the organizers in the Irish PGA too, having to battle with trying to get courses, raise sponsorship, organize the event AND trying to entice the touring pros to come and play.
These were just my observations.
Anyway hats off to Adare Manor Golf Club for doing a fine job, the Irish PGA for doing the best with the resources they have, and to the players who put on a hell of a show and producing a worthy winner in Niall Kearney.
Follow @golfcentraldoc
En route down the country last Friday I stopped off in Adare to check out the biggest event in the domestic professional golf calender; the Irish PGA Championship. What I saw was a bit of a wake up call.
First of all I sped past the venue, but not really by mistake. I had thought this marquee event was being held on the big Adare Manor Hotel golf course that staged the Irish Open a few years back; it was actually being staged on the par 69 Adare Manor Golf Club down the road.
That's not to knock the charming Adare Manor Golf Club for a second. It's a serious test and speaking to some of the players, they did an amazing job on the course over the championships and crucially, put their name in the hat to actually host the event when not many others wanted to.
But still it felt to me a bit like going to Glastonbury fully expecting The Rolling Stones to be on the main stage but instead finding them playing in the fringe tent in the far corner of the field. Follow @golfcentraldoc
To my untrained eye there seemed to be no link between the two courses in Adare and they don't seem to have each other's phone number either. I naively thought that since the compact Adare Manor Golf Club doesn't even have a practice area that being in the same village and all, some arrangement could be worked with the big course next door to give players access to a portion of their vast practice area. You know a neighbourly thing to help out. But that didn't seem to be an option and instead you had players in the Irish PGA Championship having to make do with some nets near the first tee. The host course did their very best according to players I spoke to, even arranging a makeshift practice area at a local sports ground. Still it all seemed sort of odd, like looking down on an empty Croke Park from a helicopter, all pristine and beautiful and then spotting Kerry and Donegal battling it out on the back pitch with nobody watching.
Surely the finest professionals golfers in the country of Ireland deserve to have their Major Championship on a major golf course with all the media, pomp and pageantry we can roll out for them? Ireland is after all the country that produced Harrington, McIlroy, Lowry and co, all of whom are contemporaries of the men that were battling it out in Adare. The talent on show was incredible. I don't know the first thing about golf politics and care less but it seems a shocking pity that the tournament couldn't be played on one of the big top five links or parkland courses in the country. The whole atmosphere just felt a bit cramped and subdued.
I'm guessing one of the reasons those bigger courses don't want to host is they sacrifice losing four days of green fee revenue; but since the championship is staged late in the year and many of those venues have 36 holes to work with, I thought they might love to have the best pros in the country come and play. And market it.
It must be tough for the organizers in the Irish PGA too, having to battle with trying to get courses, raise sponsorship, organize the event AND trying to entice the touring pros to come and play.
These were just my observations.
Anyway hats off to Adare Manor Golf Club for doing a fine job, the Irish PGA for doing the best with the resources they have, and to the players who put on a hell of a show and producing a worthy winner in Niall Kearney.
Follow @golfcentraldoc
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