McGinley spent his playing golf in Louth
FORMER Ryder Cup captain, Paul McGinley was back in Louth last week, a place he knows well from his youth, to help launch the Irish Legends return to Seapoint Golf Club later this year.
The legendary Irish golfer and now Sky and NBC broadcaster told how he spent summers golfing in nearby County Louth Golf Club.
“It started with a girl, I had a girlfriend there for a while”, he recounted, adding that he spent the summer months in Clogherhead in a caravan owned by JP Fitzgerald’s parents. Fitzgerald of course, was Rory McIlroy’s caddie when he won his four majors.
Prior to that, McGinley’s father, a golf club member in Naas used play winter golf in Baltray with his friends.“They would meet up at Dublin Airport and travel down in one car”.
Along with Fitzgerald and David ‘Skippy’ Carroll, now club professional in Seapoint Golf Club and two or three others, they spent summer days golfing in Baltray and enjoyed Thee Place niteclub in the former Rosnaree Hotel on Dublin Road.
Over a ten year period the former Ryder Cup player and captain, played Baltray, more and more after a knee injury curtailed his GAA career, but he regrets that he never had a chance to contest the East of Ireland Championship over the famous Louth links.
“The irony was, you know, I wasn’t a very good player. Then when I broke my knee and then I went to work in Brussels for a year.
“Then I went to college in America, that’s when I became good, when I was in San Diego. Unfortunately, I was doing exams when the East of Ireland was on so I never got to play the East of Ireland during the two year window when I was probably the best amateur in Ireland.
“I kind of regret that I never had a real goal of winning there but I did win the PGA Championship there, I shot a very, very low score to win there”.
Looking ahead to the return of the Irish Legends at Seapoint after last year’s debut, Paul McGinley told guests at the launch in the beautiful clubhouse in Seapoint that he wouldn’t make this year’s event, due to clash of dates with an event for his Foundation which has been in the diary for the last two years.
Of course, one of the highlights of the Irish Legends, is a chance for ordinary amateur golfers and celebrities from the showbiz and sporting world to play with some of the Legends.
Having played in the biggest events in golf over his career, Paul never recalls nerves at meeting any of his sporting heroes or stars from the showbiz world, but says you can get distracted, “when you are on the tee with someone you have loads of questions for, you don’t have the focus or concentration.
“You make a mistake because of a lack of concentration and intensity”.
As the club season in Ireland gets underway with handicap qualifying scores returning in club competition and the US Masters about to commence, Paul McGinley’s top tip for club golfers is “try to be more one dimensional in how you play”.
“If you play with a big cut, play with the big cut, don’t try to be something you’re not.
“Play within yourself. Consistency is something you should look for and the second thing I would say is concentration, Bad shots come from a lack of concentration and if everyone is honest with themselves, when they make a bad shot, did they just play a bad shot out of nowhere or was it that they were just thinking about that bunker and didn’t want it to go in there, so hit way over there. So, bad shots come from a bad train of thought”.