Painting, like golf, just grabs you. Learn the basics and you are away
Well known in Irish golfing circles for 50 years, Frank Clarke is even better known worldwide for his “Simply Painting” television series and books. Now 80, he’s not quite the single handicapper of the good old days, but golf remains very much in the frame for the popular artist.
1. How’s your golf?
My golf is pretty poor at the moment, to be honest, but I still love it. But I’d play four times a week if I could. I love it.
2. How did you get started in the game?
Well, my family were all from Greenore, and everyone played. My father Michael was a good player and my cousin Pat was off plus two. I was the latest to take up golf when I was nearly 30. Joined Donabate way back in the mid1960s before I moved to Rathfarnham and joined Castle where I have been a member since the seventies.
3. Choose your weapon. Driver or putter?
Putter. It’s the best club in my bag. I was always a good chipper and putter. And I’m still not too bad. And that’s because I was involved in building pitch and putt courses and golf courses. I designed the original Ballinascorney back in the day with Wattie Sullivan and Danny O’Brien and five or six parthrees, like Liffey Valley, which was the last one I built. In fact, I designed the first nine holes in Howth for Mr Gaisford-St. Lawrence.
4. Links or parkland?
Links. I am a great friend of Pat Ruddy. What a course he has at The European Club. For me, links golf is just fantastic.
5. When were you happiest on the golf course?
My happiest times were in the late sixties and early seventies when I got my handicap down to two, and the small ball was still in play, as they say. It was a very happy time. I didn’t actually start painting until the 1980s.
6. You spend a lot of time in China, the US and Australia showing people how to paint. Can anyone paint?
Of course. That’s what happened to me. You should never tell an Irishman he can’t do something. So I taught myself. I only needed one lesson to be told I should give it up. But like golf, it just grabs you. Once you learn the basics, you are away. In golf, nobody wants to learn by playing a pitch and putt course or a par-three.
They all want to go out to a driving range and then go straight from there to a golf club. And that’s where the problem lies. There is no foundation. You don’t start with a driver, you start chipping and putting. That would be my view.
7. Who were your great pals in golf?
I loved playing with Christy O’Connor Jnr and Eamonn Darcy. I learned my golf playing with them and didn’t realise until later how good they really were. I set up the Irish Pro-Am Golf Society in the early seventies to give the pros something to play in over the winter and make a little extra.
So I got around 20 pros together – the likes of John O’Leary, Peter Townsend and Roddy Carr were regulars – and we’d play every second week in winter with prize money for the pros. That’s where I first met Pat Ruddy.
8. Name the Irish pro you most admired?
You’d have to say Christy O’Connor Snr. I found him to be a great guy and such a natural golfer. I remember Pat bringing me to the American golf writers’ dinner at the Masters, and Arnold Palmer stood up and called Christy “the Master” during an after-dinner speech. He said Himself, Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson were the three most natural golfers the world has ever seen.
9. Name your dream fourball?
Jack Nicklaus, Christy Snr and Christy Jnr, who was a great friend of mine.
10. And name the venue?
Well, you’d have to say Portmarnock. But if I had a second choice, I’d like to play with them at Connemara, which is not the most difficult links in the world but it just a lovely place to play.
11. Is there a course you’d love to play before you shuffle off this mortal coil?
I’ve played a lot of golf courses all over the world, but we are blessed in Ireland to have some of the very best. I think Newcastle is a great place, Royal County Down. It’s old-fashioned, and it’s not 8,900 yards long!
12. If I gave you a mulligan in life, what would it be?
I don’t have regrets. I’ve divided up my life pretty well and had great fun. I started off fishing, then I went motor-cycle riding and then I went from that to golf and from golf to painting. I still can’t sing mind you.
13. And yet you’ve played with a few decent singers in your day.
I used to own the Greenacres cabaret in Rathfarnham when Dickie Rock, Red Hurley and Joe Dolan would all play. Of all the singers I know, Finbar Furey might have been the best golfer of the lot of them at one time, but I may be forgetting someone.
14. Are there any similarities between golf and painting?
I’d have to say no. Although I will that when you are painting, or playing golf, you have very little time to think of anything else. When you sit down to paint a picture, you can spend half the day at it and not notice the time flying by. That’s why it’s such a therapeutic hobby. I’d recommend it. In fact, I’d recommend the two.
15. Is painting a natural talent?
We can all paint. I don’t mean we can all become great artists, but anyone can learn to paint. All you need is a desire. If you can draw a straight line and write a letter M, you can paint.
A straight line is your horizon, and a letter M is a mountain range. That’s the truth of it. Golf is a little more difficult because it’s such a precise sport.
16. What’s your most treasured possession?
I remember winning the Duggan Cup in Grange in 1971, beating the pros. It was a Leinster Alliance event with pros and amateurs, and it was my best day’s golf in all those years. I think I had a 66 nett off four. Sadly, all the guys I knew are gone now.
17. If you could change something about your golf, what would it be?
My driver. I’m like CIE I have trouble with drivers. I can’t swing the club the way I did, but I still have a short game. If it didn’t take me two good shots to get within 80 yards of the green, I might be dangerous!
18. What’s your idea of perfect happiness.
I’ve lost her, but have a good wife, have good health and have a hobby.