Is Kerry being left behind by the rest of the country?

MANY times over the years I have bemoaned the fact that although we have some of Ireland’s greatest golf courses (links and inland) in the Kingdom, we don’t seem to be producing top amateur golfers in the numbers that we used to.

Down through the years we produced some of Ireland’s finest but it’s been fifteen years since the last Kerry man played for Ireland at full international level and that was Waterville’s Mark Murphy who is now a professional.

It was almost as bad at interprovincial level, because prior to Ballybunion’s Eddie Stack in 2011, Daniel Sugrue from Killarney was the last Kerry man to be picked for Munster in 2002.

Last week’s Munster Youths Championship at Tralee really brought it home to me and I began to ask myself is Kerry being left behind by the rest of the country? Just a handful of young players from the county made it to the first tee at Tralee as the handicap cut off was something in the region of 3.6 or thereabouts.

Sincere congratulations, by the way, to Tralee’s Rory Hill who finished sixth, with rounds of 77, 70 and 75.

It’s the same at all levels of golf these days, even the Seniors. I recently received the draw for the Munster Seniors, which takes place next month at Waterville and the handicap cut off was 6.4.

I remember a time not too long ago that senior golfers of any handicap could play in this event but there aren’t too many seniors now in Kerry that will fall into that handicap bracket and tee it up in Waterville.

The Munster Strokeplay Championship takes place at Cork Golf Club over the upcoming May Bank Holiday weekend and how many Kerry golfers are in the field? Two! So I’m really wondering if the rest of the country simply has better golfers than us here in Kerry?