A quick 18 with Limerick hurler Gearóid Hegarty
AFTER the Shannonsiders’ first All Ireland win for 43 years, Limerick hurler Gearóid Hegarty has been making up for lost time by indulging in his favourite past-time, a few rounds of golf with his pals.
1. How’s your golf? I’ve been getting ready to go away to Vilamoura to play and find that the more I practice, the worse I get. The golf is actually okay and if I can tighten up the short game a small bit, we will be okay.
2. How did you get started in the
game? My father was a member of Ballyneety so I probably started when I was five or six, going out with him and my uncle, Joe. I am off 12 and could probably play a little bit lower but I don’t play many competitions because I don’t have time. I prefer social golf – fourballs with friends at Castletroy and a bit of banter.
3. Choose your weapon. Driver
or putter? I can hit the ball a fair distance off the tee these days, so I’d have to go with the driver. I’d love to say the putter, but I’m struggling right now.
4. Links or parkland? We have a house in Ballybunion and I went down every summer until I was 16 or 17, caddying for my father. It’s so spectacular that it really drove my interest in the game. I’m a big man for going to the beach and going swimming too, so links golf really appeals to me.
5. When were you happiest on
the golf course? There’s a two-day event every August – one round on the Barrow Course in Tralee and the other on the Old Course in Ballybunion. I remember playing that in tough conditions about four or five years ago and I played with the same ball for two days. I know it’s not a big achievement, but for me, to play 36 holes in tough links conditions with the same ball was a major feat. I loved those two days.
6. Who was your sporting hero
growing up? I idolised Tiger Woods when I was nine or ten and he was in his prime. My mother always said that all I wanted was to have the tick on me. The Nike tick, as I called it. ‘Mammy, can I get some tick gear?’ is what I’d always say. He’s still the GOAT. 7. Name an opponent or rival you especially admire and why. We all remember Kilkenny doing the four in a row and everyone wondered how they kept coming back to win All Irelands. All we wanted was one. Now that we have reached the promised land, we know there’s no secret, just hard work.
8. So who best embodied that
philosophy for you? I remember I was in Spain 12 years ago and Ollie Moran, who hurled with Limerick for years, was there for a golf trip. It was November 2006 and Ollie was lying down at the pool after the golf with a big two-litre bottle of water. Someone said ‘Ollie, will we see you later for a few pints?’ and Ollie said he’d catch up with them later on. The same thing happened for three or four nights but it was always the same. Ollie never made it for pints, and at breakfast, he’d be fresh as a daisy. ‘Sorry lads, I fell asleep on the bed there,’ he’d say.
Of course, he had no interest in drinking pints. He just wanted to go back to Limerick in good shape. That gave me an insight into the commitment levels required. The point of the story is that the following year, Limerick got to the All Ireland final and Ollie Moran won an All-Star. His commitment was justified. 8. What’s your golfing ambition? When I finish hurling, there will be plenty of time left for golf. The way inter-county hurling has gone, you have five or six years at the top if you’re lucky. So I am 100 per cent focused on hurling and golf is a hobby. But when I do get time to go at it, I will go at it properly hard.
9. Name your dream fourball.
Shane Lowry looks like he’d be great craic and he loves his GAA so you could have a proper conversation about that and get some insight into the life of a professional sportsman. And I am a massive Liverpool fan, so I’d probably go with Jurgen Klopp, who said when he was over at the Aviva earlier this year that he’d love to see a hurling game. As for the fourth, how could you not want to play with Tiger Woods?
10. Three big achievers. That’s it. People say Shane Lowry is easy going and doesn’t really care but you don’t make it as far as he’s gone in the game without putting in a lot of hard work. It’s easy to pigeonhole people without really knowing them so it would be fantastic to get to meet those three and see what makes them tick. 11. If I gave you a mulligan in your hurling career, what would it be? I’m only 24 and I’ve won an Under 21 All Ireland and a Senior All Ireland. The last time Limerick won an Under 21 was 2000 and a Senior All Ireland was 1973. As the statistics go, I am miles ahead of the average Limerick hurler, so I can’t complain. I loved Ronnie Delany’s answer to this question. He said any time I won I won, I deserved to win and any time I lost, I deserved to lose. Not to be cocky, I thought was the perfect answer. I always feel that the best team normally wins. 12. If you had just one game of golf to play, where would it be? Augusta National. When the Masters is on TV, I am glued to the couch for four days. It has to be Augusta.
13. I believe you’ve played the new Adare Manor, so you’ve had some practice on a course with similar
conditioning anyway. What a place. I hit driver and five wood off the whites to the 17th into a gale force wind and the caddie said I should run back to see the back tee. It must have been another 150 yards back. It’s unreal. I hope it gets a couple of big events.
14. What’s your favourite hole in
Irish golf? I have three. The parfive second along the beach on the Barrow at Tralee; and the par-four 11th and the par-three 15th on the Old Course at Ballybunion. 15. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? I wish I had more time to play golf. We were going so well in the hurling this year and the weather was so good, I almost felt I was missing out on golf. So I went up to the club before we played Kilkenny just to hit a few chips, not play, and wasn’t there a function on in the clubhouse. And who was speaking at it only the manager, John Kiely!
He gave me the dirtiest look. The next day in training, he said, ‘Next time, just stay home on the couch not expending any energy.’ So I’d love to play more, but there will be plenty of time for that in the future.
16. What’s your most treasured
possession? My health. I love my sport – indoor soccer on a Monday, playing a few holes, training and matches with Limerick, running out onto Croke Park – you can do none of those things without your health. Your health is your wealth. 17. If you could change something about your golf, what would it be? Apart from my putting, it would have to be my clubs. I’ve been playing with the same set for about five years, and I’ve grown about five inches since then. If I could, I’d get fitted for a full set of irons, and they’d do me forever.
18. What’s your idea of perfect
happiness? Life goes at 100 mph, so I love coming home from work, getting on the shorts and a tee shirt and just going up to the golf club to switch off and shoot the breeze with the lads for a few hours. I always refer to the golf club as my happy place. It’s so peaceful up there.