​When the golf craze really got going in Ireland in the last years of the nineteenth century it took root in Belfast, Dublin and pockets of activity mainly in coastal areas.  Clubs that could afford to engage professionals had to entice them over from Scotland.  Locals got employment as green-keepers or caddies.  In those days it was just a short step from green-keeper or caddy to professional, and club-making professionals took on local apprentices, so that slowly a new breed of native professionals emerged.  One small area of north-east Wicklow was to produce more than its share of golf pros through the years.
 
At the end of the nineteenth century Co. Wicklow had three golf clubs, Greystones (founded in 1895), Bray and Woodenbridge, both dating from 1897.  Of course, Bray was the site of one of the earliest recorded golfing greens outside Scotland, back in the 1760s, but by the 1890s golf was being re-introduced as a new activity.  The three early clubs were joined by Wicklow in 1904 and Delgany in 1908.  Greystones and Delgany are a stone’s throw from one another, yet they set many caddies on the road to professional golf.  But the story of north-east Wicklow’s professionals began in Bray.
 
Bray initially engaged a Scottish professional but he did not stay long.  By 1898 twenty-one year old Richard Larkin had replaced him.  Though Larkin was born in Meath, he grew up in Dollymount, Co. Dublin.  When he was twelve, Dublin Golf Club moved from the Phoenix Park to the Bull Island close to Richard’s home.  Two years later it became Royal Dublin, but in later years its links became familiarly known as Dollymount.  The arrival of the club brought employment as caddies for the boys of Dollymount.  Richard Larkin was one of many youngsters from the area who went on to careers in golf.
 
Larkin’s presence in Bray had a long-term influence.  In 1898 he married Ellen Martin from Greystones.  Ellen’s younger brother Eddie came to live with them in Bray and work at club-making with Richard.  This began a long association with golf for the Martin family.  In about 1902 another Dublin golfer, James Barrett, came to Greystones as caddy master and later professional.  About four years later, when he moved on to Hermitage, he was replaced at Greystones by a local man, Tom Walker, who was a club-maker of some note.  In 1907 Barrett returned to Greystones to celebrate his marriage to Ellen Larkin’s sister Mary Martin.  Later that year he played on Ireland’s first professional team, in a match against Scotland.  Shortly afterwards he moved to Carrickmines, where he remained pro until his death in 1950.  His son Jimmy Barrett succeeded him in the post.
 
Presumably it was under Barrett at Greystones that another of the Martin brothers, James, learned his craft.  In 1907, aged 20, James Martin was appointed the first professional at the new Milltown Golf Club in Dublin.  The pinnacle of James Martin’s career came in 1922, when he won the Irish Professional Championship by a margin of five strokes at Portrush.
 
The Martin family’s association with golf continued for many decades.  Eddie Martin, the youngster who was making clubs under the guidance of his brother-in-law at the beginning of the twentieth century, eventually became professional at Greystones.  Eddie’s son Jimmy was born in Killincarrig, Greystones, in 1924 and he followed in his father’s footsteps.  He followed also in his uncle’s footsteps in becoming Irish Professional champion in 1969.  As a touring professional Jimmy Martin became the most successful member of the Martin family, winning four British Tour events, and playing for GB&I in the 1965 Ryder Cup team.
 
Jimmy Martin was related to another golfing family through his mother, Christina Darcy.  The most prominent of the Darcys of Bellevue, Delgany, was Jimmy’s much younger second cousin, Eamonn.  One of Ireland’s most successful touring professionals, Eamonn Darcy had eight tournament wins and four Ryder Cup appearances.  Extraordinarily, Eamonn was related also to another important figure in Irish professional golf.  His granduncle was Pat Doyle who was runner-up in the 1912 Irish Professional Championship.  Doyle was born in 1889 in Kindlestown, between Greystones and Delgany.  He is claimed by Delgany Golf Club as its first professional, which is possible as he was 19 when it opened.  He emigrated to the USA in 1913 and that year finished tenth in the US Open.  He remained in America, one of the first generation of Irish golfers to carve out a career in that country.
 
During James Barrett’s time at Greystones one of his protégés was a young caddy from Delgany named Ned Bradshaw.  Ned was to become professional at Delgany, with his sons Harry, Eddie and Jimmy following him into the sport.  Of course, the most illustrious of the clan was Harry Bradshaw, born in Killincarrig in 1913.  Harry made three Ryder Cup appearances, won the Canada Cup with Christy O’Connor, and almost won The Open in 1949.
 
Bill Kinsella, born in Greystones in 1906, began another family of golf pros.  In 1930 he became professional at Skerries in north Co. Dublin, where his grandson Bobby is currently the third generation of the Kinsellas to occupy that position.  Bill’s sons Jimmy, Billy and David all were professionals, with Jimmy being a successful touring pro in the 60s and 70s.
 
Twice Irish Professional champion, Christy Greene, was another native of this extraordinarily fertile golfing haven.  Born in Kindlestown in 1926, he began caddying at Greystones at an early age and learned the game alongside Jimmy Martin.
 
Greystones / Delgany has proved a rare breeding ground for professional golfers.  The Martins, the Bradshaws, Tom Walker, Pat Doyle, Bill Kinsella, Christy Greene and Eamonn Darcy have left a lasting mark on the golfing landscape.
 
[First published in the Irish Clubhouse, June, 2014]

​This year marks half a century since a female Irish golfer first turned professional.  That individual was Philomena Garvey, arguably the greatest woman player Ireland has ever produced.  Fifty years on, Paul Gorry looks at this remarkable player’s career, and at the development of a role for women Irish professionals in her wake.
 
The highlights of Philomena Garvey’s amateur achievements speak volumes about her calibre – British Ladies’ champion 1957, runner-up four times and semi-finalist on two further occasions; US Ladies’ quarter-finalist in 1950; selected for seven Curtis Cup teams and played in six, including two victorious sides.  In addition, she played on seven Vagliano Trophy teams and represented GB&I twice against Canada.  Domestically she was in a league of her own, winning the Irish Close an unparalleled fifteen times.
 
Phil Garvey was a native of Baltray, close to Co. Louth Golf Club.  When she was growing up the star of Irish ladies’ golf was a local girl, Clarrie Tiernan (later Reddan).  Phil first came to prominence in 1944, when she reached the final of the Leinster Championship at Hermitage as an 18 year old.  Clarrie Reddan denied her victory on that occasion, but she won the Leinster title on six subsequent occasions.  In fact, her only other defeat in the Leinster was in 1951, at the hands of Pat O’Sullivan of Tramore.
 
By 1946, when the Irish Close resumed after World War II, Phil was aged 20.  She won the championship on her first attempt.  Remarkably, of the 18 Irish Close championships played between 1946 and 1964, Phil won 14 and she was unable to play on two other occasions.  So, in that era she was defeated only twice in an Irish championship – in 1949 (by Moira Smyth) and in 1952 (by Dorothy Forster).
 
Her decision to try her hand at professional golf came at the age of 37, by which time she had been one of the world’s leading lady amateurs for close on two decades.  On 4 January 1964 the newspapers announced that Philomena Garvey had turned professional, becoming the first female Irish professional golfer.  The rules on amateur status back then were extremely strict.  As early as 1949 Phil had her status questioned by the R&A because she earned her living as a sales assistant in the sports section of Clerys department store.  The very mention of contemplating turning professional was a breach of the rules.  Consequently there were no rumours heralding Philomena’s announcement.
 
Ita Butler, who captained the victorious GB&I Curtis Cup team at Killarney in 1996, was a rising star in Irish golf when Phil took the step.  ‘We were surprised when Philomena turned professional’ she recalls, ‘Professionalism was a taboo subject for amateurs then so there was no warning.  But there was admiration for her courage in taking the step.’
 
At the time there were very few female professional golfers outside of the USA.  Other than Jean Donald and Jessie Valentine there were really no professionals in Great Britain, and very little opportunity for competition.  Being made an honorary member of the Irish Professional Golfers Association, Phil was able to compete in the inaugural IPGA Southern Championship in July 1964.  The following month she made more history in becoming the first woman to compete in the Irish Professional Championship.  There was no qualifying round and no half-way cut, so she completed all 72 holes, albeit finishing in last place.
 
Finding that she could not make a career as a club professional, a teacher or a tournament pro, Philomena sought reinstatement as an amateur, which she obtained in December 1967.  Having been defeated in the early stages of the Irish Close in 1968 and 1969 she claimed her 15th national title in 1970.  At the age of 44 years and 27 days, she became the second oldest winner in the championship’s history.
 
Phil Garvey’s amateur career was at a time when international travel was slow and expensive.  Consequently, her overseas competition was limited primarily to the British Ladies’ and to team events.  It was as a member of the Curtis Cup team that she got the opportunity to play in the US Women’s Amateur twice.  In 1950 she lost in the quarter-finals to the eventual winner, Beverly Hanson.  In 1954 she reached the Last 16 before Mary Lena Faulk finished her run.  In Phil’s day an amateur had to finance their own travel.  Had she lived in a different era she could have made an even greater impact on women’s golf.
 
Other Irish players were slow to follow her unsuccessful lead.  In 1969 Gwen Brandom became the second female Irish golfer to turn professional.  Her experiment lasted a decade.  In 1986 Maureen Madill turned professional, and succeeded in making a career as a tournament player, teacher and commentator.  Later in 1986 Lillian Behan followed Maureen’s example, giving Ireland two female professional golfers for the first time.  In 1989, twenty-five years after Phil played in the Irish Professional Championship, Gillian Burrell became the second woman to compete in it.  Forty-five years after Phil’s appearance Marion Riordan became the first woman to come through the pre-qualifying process to gain a starting place in the 2009 Irish Professional Championship.
 
Phil was justly honoured with a biography, Philomena Garvey – Queen of the Irish Fairways, by her namesake Paul Garvey, published in 2009 by The Liffey Press.  Sadly, she died on 5 May 2009, shortly before the publication.  Today Rebecca Codd is the sole Irish member of the Ladies European Tour, but there are a few female club professionals and teaching pros in various parts of Ireland.  They all stand on the shoulders of this giant of Irish women’s golf.

[First published in the Irish Clubhouse, April-May 2014]