MIND THE GAP
Golf’s generation game crucial for the future, warns Damien McGrane. By
DAMIEN McGrane sees the creation of a
36-hole qualifier for next year’s Dubai Duty Free Irish Open as a progressive step in Irish professional golf.
But the 47-year old former Volvo China Open winner and European Tour veteran has seen enough of the state of the club and professional game in Ireland for the last two years to know that we still have a long way to go to safeguard its future.
Having topped the PGA Irish Region’s Order of Merit for the second successive year to clinch his place in the PGA Playoffs alongside David Higgins and Simon Thornton at Walton Heath later this month, McGrane has his finger on the pulse of Irish club golf. His verdict? The patient is alive but needs a transfusion of young blood.
En route to winning 10 of his
20 PGA Pro-Am appearances this year, he played at clubs from Cairndhu to Connemara and from Malahide to Cork and realised that the scene has evolved little since the early
1990s when he was a humble club professional at Wexford with dreams of playing on tour.
It’s not that he believes the system is broken or that the PGA in Ireland is not working, but he has concerns that despite the sterling efforts of the PGA, the Confederation of Golf in Ireland and the amateur bodies working to create One Governing Body (OGB), young people are not taking up the game in numbers.
“The worrying side of it is that the same people I played with at the start of my career are still the same people playing the events — and I am talking about amateurs and professionals here,” McGrane said this week.
“The number of young people putting their hands in their pocket and paying to play in the Pro-Am format hasn’t really changed. That means the system is getting a year older each year and the same guys are playing each year.
“I don’t see guys in their 30s and 40s queuing up to play, and that’s going to create a vacuum for all aspects of the golf industry over the next few years.”
The PGA in Ireland runs over
50 events a year from Pro-Ams to championships for its members, and while McGrane is not saying it needs to be replaced, he’d like to see more young blood.
“It’s difficult to change a system that’s not broken because it currently still functions,” he said. “But it is not accelerating forward and jumping through the ceiling, and that is because of the culture of golf and the downturn in the economy.
“The people are not being replaced by younger men and ladies, but I think the system is evolving. The Golfing Union, the CGI and the PGA, are trying to get things to evolve.
“Ultimately, it is a slow process. If you are dealing with the same professionals, how can you have a new system? It would have to be out with the old and in with the new and that’s difficult to do.”
In common with many ordinary golfers, McGrane is not ‘au fait’ with what is happening with regard to the creation of One Governing Body.
But he says the co-operation between the PGA and the amateur unions under the CGI umbrella can only strengthen Irish golf in the long run.
“I don’t know enough about the amateur scene, but if there is a one-stop shop, we would be a closer community,” he said.
“The problem I feel, being a professional, is that if professionals are segregated into one compound and the leading amateurs are segregated into another compound, and the ladies golf is in another compound, the fact that we don’t mix is not healthy.
“We don’t realise how good one another are, we don’t realise where we are strong and where we are weak, and as soon as those bridges are built, we can share ideas and move forward together.”
As for the evolution of the Dubai Duty Free Irish Open, which is now a $7m Rolex Series event, he sees the introduction of a 36-hole Irish Open qualifier for four spots at the end of June next year as a positive step.
The event will be open to PGA professionals, mini-tour players and selected amateurs nominated by the GUI and replaces the old method of awarding six automatic spots in the Irish Open field to the top-six on the previous season’s Irish Region Order of Merit.
“It is the new way, and it is progress,” said McGrane, who retired from the tour at the end of 2015 after making €5m in prize money from 401 events, winning once.
“The European Tour has to secure the best spots and playing rights for their players. So if it is a qualifier that’s open to everybody, I will definitely be open to that. That’s the way it should be.
“It’s a national open, and any guy from any background should be able to pay his money and get into a Rolex Series event like the Irish Open. It is a more modern way of looking at golf.
“I still believe that potentially, the same players will still qualify. But it also gives the guys who play the mini-tours the opportunity to get into a big event and God knows where it might take them.
“I would be disappointed if somebody saw it as a way to profit from guys who hadn’t got their foot on the ladder yet. That would be disappointing. But a
£60 (€68) entry fee is realistic. “The young men don’t want a tour school situation, where the monetary entry fee (€1,800 this year) is a big stumbling block. It should be about the best golfers qualifying not the guys who have a few bob in their bank accounts.”
McGrane will have a chance to qualify, not just for the Dubai Duty Free Irish Open but also to win one of four places in the 2018 BMW PGA at Wentworth and two spots in the British Masters when he joins Higgins and Thornton at the 24-man PGA Playoffs at Walton Heath from October 30 to November 1.
But while he admits he may well be tempted by the European Seniors Tour when he hits 50 in three years’ time, he has no desire right now to fly around the world again and is happy to leave it to the fledgeling professionals to chase their tour dreams.
“It is about the new guys making the best of these opportunities and I am glad the qualifying system is there now because it is a small window of opportunity for guys to push their career forward so that’s what it is all about,” he said.
“There is no doubt about it, there is plenty of talent. But some people would say that talented golfers are two a penny these days.
“As we have seen in the pro ranks the last couple of years, guys are struggling to express themselves on the biggest stage, and we are all sitting around waiting for the arrival of the next Paul Dunne or the next Rory McIlroy.”
Helping young pros is one of McGrane’s passions, and he plans to run his weekly, winner-takesall shootout again this winter, offering a dozen budding young tour players the chance to put
€100 each in the hat, play competitive strokeplay and take home a tidy, four-figure sum.
It’s as good a way as any to help create the next generation, see where they stand and learn the skills that they need to survive in an increasingly competitive world.