Paddy O’Looney
Golf tourism chief who took the game to new markets, writes Dermot Gilleece
WHEN Jean Kennedy Smith was US ambassador to this country, I happened to attend an early morning media gathering at Iveagh House in Dublin, 20 years ago. Though it had to do essentially with the impending Columbia Space Shuttle mission, there was a fascinating golfing dimension.
We were informed that through the influence of Paddy O’Looney, a pennant would be carried on board by astronaut Lt Col Jim Halsell, incorporating the logos of nine Irish golf clubs. This was typical of the sort of exposure achieved by O’Looney for golf tourism in Ireland’s south-west region.
Born in Dublin on April 17, 1946, Paddy died on December 8 after a long illness. He was chief executive of SWING from February 1, 1987 until his retirement in 2011.
O’Looney first came to prominence as a very useful competitor in the country’s various amateur championships, especially during the 1960s and ’70s.
While attending the Shannon Hotel and Catering College, he met fellow student Josephine “Joey” Kavanagh, from Clonmel, whom he married on October 5, 1973.
At a time when Connacht were very often cannon-fodder for the other provinces, O’Looney represented them in the annual Interprovincial Championship from 1974 to 1986. During that period, he won 14 and halved one of his 51 matches, which was quite a decent return in the circumstances.
By then, he was working in the hotel industry. And with Josephine as the lady of the house, Paddy considered it appropriate to name their large, lovable English sheepdog Napoleon. They made a great trio at various establishments in the west, culminating in his last appointment at the Liscannor Golf Hotel.
When Denis Brosnan, of the Kerry Group, decided in 1986 to launch SWING (South West Ireland Golf ) as a promotional vehicle for golf in the south west, O’Looney became its inaugural chief executive. It proved to be an inspired appointment, given his popularity throughout the industry, his enduring skill as a category-one player and his feel for tourism, especially from the lucrative US market.
He certainly knew how to talk the talk. Irrepressibly optimistic, he would claim that committed golf tourists were waterproof, war-proof and recession-proof.
A measure of his success was that from the modest, 211 rounds generated by SWING back in 1986, they could boast in excess of more than 20,000 rounds for the 2006 season.
In this context, the American market was crucial and O’Looney’s promotional expertise included invaluable endorsements in SWING brochures from two leading world figures in Tiger Woods and Mark O’Meara. Originally, the SWING umbrella incorporated Lahinch, Ballybunion, Tralee, Killarney and Waterville, but this has since been expanded to include all of the leading clubs in the south-west region.
By July 2007, it was estimated that SWING had generated about €22m in green fee revenue for its member clubs.
Though he and Joey eventually made their home in Ardfert outside Tralee, O’Looney was immensely proud of having been a member of Portmarnock Golf Club for more than 50 years.
Meanwhile, the many friendships he made, included the celebrated Spanish professional Manuel Pinero, with whom he shared memories of Bing Crosby during a competition for delegates attending the Third World Golf Tourism Congress at Montecastillo, Spain, in 2000. As it happened, Pinero presented the golf prizes and the top award went to O’Looney, who carded an admirable level-par 72 gross. The runner-up was none other than Victor Garcia, older brother of last April’s US Masters winner Sergio, who was the reigning Irish Open champion from Druids Glen at the time. With regard to Crosby: O’Looney recalled to Pinero how, as a 15-year-old juvenile member of Portmarnock playing off five-handicap, he had the good fortune to meet the Old Groaner when he visited the club along with his Irish manager, George O’Reilly. Pinero, of course, was Crosby’s golf partner in Madrid in 1976, when the star died of a heart-attack at the end of their round.
O’Looney’s funeral attracted many friends from the Irish golf scene. And one imagines many others, beyond these shores, wishing him a peaceful transition to divot-free fairways in the great beyond.