Celebrating one of our best golfers
MARY GORRY is the only person who represented Ireland at full International level while a member of Baltinglass, and she is the only Irish champion ever produced by the club.
Throughout her early development in golf Mary was somewhat overshadowed by her slightly older sister, Hilda, but she managed to carve a niche for herself.
Mary was born in Baltinglass on June 11, 1952; Pat and Eileen Gorry’s third daughter.
She started to play in the ladies club competitions during the summer of 1964 and recorded her first win in a nine-hole stroke of her thirteenth birthday. The following year, as a fourteen-year-old, she won the Lady Captain’s Prize, the President’s Prize and the Vice President’s Prize for the ladies.
In 1967 she made her debut in the Irish Girls’ championship, played that year at Portrush. Though she competed in the championship on three subsequent occasions, she never advanced to the closing stages.
In 1968, while Hilda was taking part in the Girls’ International against Wales, Mary played in the Midland Junior championship (for handicaps of 12 or over) at Carlow and won the title, beating the future British Girls’ champion, Jo Mark, along the way.
Finally, in 1970, she was selected to represent Ireland. Playing in the Girls’ Home International in August at Llandudno in Wales, she won her match against Wales but was beaten by her English and Scottish opponents. In the British Girls’ championship, which followed the Internationals, she went out in the first round to the future Curtis Cup player Maureen Walker of Scotland.
The following season she made her first attempt at competition at senior level, taking part in the Irish Ladies’ Close championship at Baltray.
On this first outing she advanced to the quarter-finals by beating the international Ann O’Brien 6/4, succumbed to the new Curtis Cup player, Mary McKenna by 4/2.
At the end of the week the five-member Irish side for the European Ladies’ Team Championship was named, and Mary Gorry was a surprise inclusion. Less than a year after making her international debut at girls’ standard, she first played for Ireland at full international level in the European Championship at Ganton in England.
Unfortunately, the team missed the first flight by four shots. She was then aged nineteen and she had not yet competed as an inter-provincial.
However, she played for Leinster later that summer, and was named on the Irish team for the Home Internationals. In fact, she was to appear on every regular Irish Ladies’ team throughout the next decade.
In the early ‘70s she joined The Grange in Dublin and began to compete on its Senior Cup team.
In 1973 she won the Waterford Scratch, the first of sixteen scratch trophies. The following year she competed in the British Ladies’ Amateur Open championship for the first time and recorded victories in the Woodbrook Scratch Trophy and Midland championship.
Then in May 1975 Mary Gorry’s career reached a new height in the Irish Ladies’ Close championship at Tramore a month short of her twenty-third birthday. Reaching the quarter-finals for just the second time, she again faced Mary McKenna, then the title holder.
Mary’s 6/5 win was considered a shock result, as, at the time, Mary McKenna was all but invincible on the home front. In the semi-final, Mary Gorry beat another fellow international, Claire Nesbitt, 5/4 to reach her first Irish championship final.
Her opponent at this last stage was Elaine Bradshaw, who had already won the title three times. It was a very close match that went all the way to the 18th, where Mary sank a seven-foot putt for a onehole victory.
No one was prouder of her success than her father Pat Gorry, who had caddied for her in each of her Irish championship campaigns and who was to caddy for her in the Irish Close up to 1979.
In recognition of being crowned Irish Champion and having the name of Baltinglass Golf Club engraved on a national championship cup, Mary Gorry was elected an Honorary Life Member of Baltinglass, and the club held a function in her honour on Sunday, June 22, at which she was presented with a silver salver.
That summer she made her third appearance in the European Team Championship at St. Cloud in France, and won the South of Ireland Scratch Cup at Castletroy and the Waterford Scratch Trophy.
In September she played No. 1 on the Irish team in the Home Internationals at Newport in Wales and won all three singles, beating the English Champion Ann Johnson, and Scotland’s Suzanne Cadden, who was later presented with the Daks Golfer of the Year award as outstanding British lady player of 1975.
Early in 1976 Mary travelled to Rabat on a two-member Irish team to compete in the Moroccan championship.
That year she again advanced to the semi-finals of the Irish Close at Rosses Point, but lost to Claire Nesbitt, the eventual winner. Among her other performances in 1976 Mary Gorry won the Mabel Harrison Trophy at Portrush. This was the first of her five consecutive victories in this scratch tournament.
In 1977 she was beaten in the semi-final of the Irish Close by the eventual winner, Mary McKenna, at Ballybunion.
Then, in the British Ladies’ Amateur Open championship at Hillside in Southport, she advanced to the semi-finals, along the way beating the legendary Anne Quast Sander, three times U.S Champion and a future winner of the British.
Mary was beaten by Angela Uzielli, who went on to win the title. It is a coincidence that Mary’s appearance in the British semi-finals was exactly seventy years after that of another lady associated Baltinglass, Violet Tynte.
Mary Gorry’s performance on this occasion earned her a place on the GB&I team which defeated Continental Europe in the Vagliano Trophy match at Malmo in Sweden later in the year.
Having also won the Leinster championship and, in partnership with Mary McKenna, the Irish Foursomes title, at the end of 1977 she was given the Irish Golf Writers’ Award for leading lady golfer.
As a member of the panel from which the Curtis Cup team would be selected for the 1978 match at Apawamis in the U.S.A., Mary Gorry had a good start to the 1978 season. She won the Hermitage Scratch Cup, then the most prestigious scratch event in Ireland, with high profile guest players from Great Britain.
The 1978 Irish championship was held at The Grange, Mary’s other home club, and on this occasion, she entered from The Grange.
She won the Leitrim Cup, as leading qualifier, by nine shots and then went on to beat fellow internationals Susan Gorman, Lillian Malone and Mary McKenna to reach the final.
In the final she overcame another Curtis Cup panellist, Ita Butler, by 4/3 to take her second Irish Close title.
Then in the last event before the Curtis Cup team was announced, the British championship, she reached the last 16 and most observers predicted that she would be included in the side to oppose the Americans. It was a surprise, therefore, when she was named second reserve.
Despite this confidence blow, she again added the South of Ireland Scratch Cup and the Mabel Harrison Trophy to her list of wins later that summer.
In the Home Internationals at Moortown, again playing No. 1 for Ireland, she won her singles against Pamela Light and the renowned Belle Robertson, then the Welsh and Scottish Champions, respectively, but lost to Vanessa Marvin, the English Champion who was later given the Daks Golfer of the Year award. Mary Gorry was again named leading lady player in the 1978 Irish Golf Writers’ Awards. That year she was also elected an Honorary Life Member of The Grange.
The European Team Championships was held in Ireland in 1979. Making her fifth consecutive appearance in the event, Mary Gorry was a member of the six-member Irish side that secured a home victory at Hermitage.
Having qualified for the first flight, they advanced to the semi-finals where they overcame France, before defeating Germany in the final. It was the first time an Irish ladies’ team won a championship since the 1907 Home Internationals, a gap of seventy-two years.
This was undoubtedly a major highlight in Mary Gorry’s career. Individually, she had a good year also.
She reached the semi-finals of the Irish Close for the fifth year running, succumbing on this occasion to Claire Nesbitt. She also set a remarkable record in winning four of the five Irish regional championships, a record unlikely to be beaten.
During 1979 Mary took the Connaught, Leinster, Midland and Ulster titles. As the Leinster section of the Senior Cup was held at the same time as the Munster championship, she did not compete in the latter. 1979 was the first year that the Ulster championship was open to players from outside the province. It was not till 2002 that another non-Ulster golfer won the title.
While Ireland gained three plac