WYNNE ATALL COSTS IN THE WEST
Connacht stalwart Adrian aiming to qualify for his 40th West of Ireland Championship this year
I love the West, and as it’s my local championship I like to support it even though I have no illusions
ALBERT Einstein insisted the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
But the great theoretical physicist also new a thing or two about relativity and for Adrian Wynne, teeing it up in the West of Ireland Championship for the 40th time is not about trying to win the famous old trophy but a good old fashioned love story and his way of paying homage to Connacht golf.
Why else would a 61-year-old man, now playing off a handicap of two, put his named own for the West of Ireland Championship Qualifier on March 31 and battle with a host of young guns less than half his age for just seven spots in what will be a 72-hole “West” from April 4-7 this year?
Connacht golf’s blue riband championship has been played at Rosses Point since 1923 and having first teed it up in 1974, Boyle native and former Connacht interprovincial Wynne wouldn’t miss it for the world.
How could he? He grew up next door to the late lamented Fred Perry, who was a member of the West of Ireland Championship committee for 42 years until his sad passing last year.
“We had Wynne’s Pub on the corner of Main Street in Boyle, and then we had a newsagents, and then next door was Fred’s supermarket,” explained Adrian, who was a member of the Connacht team that won the interprovincials for only the second time in 1983 before going on to captain Connacht to only their third success 28 years later.
“The families were very close and so we grew up playing the old nine-hole golf course in Boyle, and we’d work for Fred in his supermarket in the summer and when he’d play scratch cups in Athlone or Rosses Point, I’d caddie for him.
“Later, when I got on the Connacht Under 18 and Under 22 teams, Fred was always very encouraging. He was a one off.”
Wynne, who now plays out of Strandhill and enjoyed many of his most memorable interprovincial and West of Ireland Championship moments as a member of Carrick-on-Shannon, is grateful for the advent of the 18-hole qualifier introduced in 2013.
“I love the West, and as it’s my local championship,” he said. “So if there’s a chance, I like to support it even though I have no illusions, playing off 2.4.
“The standard is now so good that the cut off for the Championship this year was plus 0.3, which is point one lower than last year, so the Qualifier at least gives me a chance to have a go.”
He’s made it through the qualifier before and knowing the vagaries of the weather at County Sligo, he may just dig deep into his memory banks and conjure up some of the magic that helped him to giant-killing feats way back in 1981, when he beat internationals Brendan McDaid and Mark Gannon and reached the last 16.
“I can remember hitting a driver to the par-three fourth, and I remember the year when I was out early, and the 18th was a drive and a three iron,” he recalled. “Then in the afternoon, Andre Hogan Jnr hit a driver over the 18th green. That’s the luck of the draw.”
World class performers like Garth McGimpsey and Rory McIlroy remain fresh in his mind but Wynne, who played Senior Cup and Barton Shield golf for County Sligo in his day, has a particular fondness for the Connacht warrior of times past, such as Sean Flanagan or Castlerea’s Rupert de Lacy Staunton.
“Sean Flanagan was an idol of mine, and it’s wonderful to see his grandson Sean playing in the championship and his son Kevin as captain for the club’s 125th-anniversary celebrations this year,” he said.
“He was born near Boyle at Lough Key Forest Park, and he was just a remarkable player. I remember there was a 36 hole scratch cup one day and it was so wet, he played the second 18 in his bare feet. It was just something he did.”
While he remains a regular on the seniors’ circuit with his now familiar long putter – no longer anchored after the change to the rules – his happiest memories are those team successes with Connacht, both of which came at Ballyconneely in Connemara.
“I remember Rupert drew John Carr at number one on the final day back in 1983,” he recalled. “He must have been 40 at the time, and John was a potential Walker Cup player.
“’Now Mr Carr, we’ll see if you’re Walker Cup standard or not,’ Rupert said before the off. And didn’t Rupert win on the 19th, and he was so pleased when he finished, he said, ‘I can hang up the clubs. I’ve beaten the father (Joe), the son (Roddy) and now the Holy Ghost’.”
It was another 28 years before Connacht won another Interprovincial Championship with Wynne the skipper at Connemara in 2011.
But should he fail to upset the odds on Sunday week and make the 132-man field for the Championship proper, it would not be for want of trying in the shadow of old Ben Bulben. Perry and Flanagan will be pulling for him from on high.