“I probably did make a difference”

West Waterford Golf Club in Ireland has a reputation for nurturing young talent like Séamus Power. This all came about because a man in the 1960s found a golf ball in his neighbour’s garden, which led to him becoming a greenkeeper, which led to him being asked to help build a new golf club, which led to him appealing to juniors in an attempt to recruit their parents as new members, writes Daragh Small.

Pat Murphy was a Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) man at heart when he was younger but one afternoon, he found a golf ball in a neighbour’s garden and the love affair with this new game took shape.

He cut the front lawn and prepared a nine-hole pitch and putt course for his own use, and without a set of golf clubs to his name he used a hurley (the stick used in hurling) to hit the ball.

“The doctor was coming to my mother who wasn’t well at the time. He saw this and he brought me a couple of clubs the next time he came,” said Murphy.

“The parents felt I would be better off milking cows. My father, James, was huge into greyhounds. He loved his greyhounds and he was very disappointed in me when I didn’t share the same interest.”

The family farm was in Glenbeg just a few kilometres outside of Dungarvan on the south-east coast of Ireland, his house there would later to be coined ‘Augusta’ after Murphy and his wife Mary got married.

His love for the game of golf grew and in the late 1960s he finally purchased his own golf clubs.

“It was about 1968, the interesting thing about it is in them days there was no pro shops in the clubs or anything like that,” said Murphy.

“In fact, it was a half-set of clubs I bought up in Clery’s on O’Connell Street. Philomena Garvey was there in the golf section and she recommended the clubs to me. I got a lift up to Dublin from a friend of mine and I bought the first half-set of clubs.”

Everything then changed. Murphy began working at the local golf course and his handicap dropped to single figures while his brother Jimmy achieved a scratch handicap.

“I took to the game of golf in Dungarvan, which was a nine-hole course, they had only one greenkeeper and he was doing everything,” said Murphy.

“I came on-board with him as a volunteer and I used to maintain the course when he was on holiday. I used to cut the holes for the weekends and that was the way it was, I absolutely loved it.“

He would become captain and president in Dungarvan but eventually his neighbour, Pat Spratt, started to construct his own golf course.

Eddie Hackett was brought on board as designer and used Murphy to help him.

“They started building West Waterford Golf Club around 35 years ago,” said Murphy.

“They coaxed me away to help with the building. I became very friendly with Eddie, who sent me off to England to do greenkeeping courses.

“I was the go-to person after that. It was very hard to get members so I came up with the idea – I’ll go after the juniors.

“That’s how I got the likes of [PGA Tour golfer] Séamus Power, [European Tour golfer] Gary Hurley and these fellas. They came in and they had the golf course to themselves all day long. I knew if I got in the juniors, their daddies and mammies would come with them.”

It was an instant success and West Waterford Golf Club became a hotbed for the rising talent in Ireland at the time.

“What Séamus has done is outside of our imagination, it was against all the odds, absolutely against all the odds after his mother died when he was just eight,” said Murphy.

“Séamus is in contact with me literally every week at some stage or another. He has won around $10 million on the PGA Tour but he has never lost it because when Seamus comes home to Ireland, he is over to my house.

“My youngest daughter was diagnosed with MS when she was 15. But Séamus is over to her. He is unbelievable and Gary Hurley is the same. Gary is over whenever he is home. He brings over his trophies and spends an hour or two and has a cup of tea.

“But I was so lucky, I was fortunate to have young lads like that come through and to have made such an impact on them.”

Pat Murphy

And 76-year-old Murphy’s impact hasn’t gone unnoticed as West Waterford nominated him as their club volunteer of the year in a new initiative run by Golf Ireland.

“The club was opened in 1993 and it’s actually our 30th anniversary in July, we are having a massive celebration,” said Murphy.

“But the fact that my club nominated me and my province selected me, now I am thinking, you know what? I probably did make a difference. What I would be saying is you could make a difference as well. Even as an individual or collectively, you could make a huge difference.

“What I am thinking now and everybody does when they get older, it is up to us to promote, to protect and to preserve the game of golf going forward.”