‘I haven’t a bloody bob but you’ll go to the US’
As Séamus Power makes his mark at the Masters, his father reveals how he contemplated selling the family farm to make his son’s golf dreams a reality
THE father of golfer Séamus Power – who has been catapulted from relative obscurity to the world’s elite in the space of just a year – has revealed how he thought he would have to sell the family farm so his son could follow his dream.
Former journeyman golfer Séamus, 35, is now ranked 41st in the world after an incredible 12 months that culminated in him teeing off alongside fellow Irish US Masters hopefuls Rory McIlroy, Shane Lowry and Pádraig Harrington at Augusta this week.
It’s been a rapid and unexpected career rise for the Waterford man, but the foundations for his late success were sown two decades ago. As a teenager returning home from a tournament, Séamus shared some surprising news with his father Ned: he had just been offered a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to pursue a golf scholarship in Tennessee in the US.
‘He told me he had been asked would he do it,’ Ned tells the Irish Mail on Sunday.
‘He said, “I’d love to go,” so I said back, “Well, you know what Séamus? I haven’t a bloody bob but
‘I have regrets about things I didn’t do’
you’re going.” I knew then if I had to sell the farm he was going.’
Séamus spent four years at East Tennessee State University and took a degree in accounting.
The family struggled financially. Séamus’s mother Philomena died when he was just eight, leaving Ned to care for him and his elder twin brothers, Jack and Willie.
But somehow Ned managed, taking on a second job by night as a welder with Boston Scientific to supplement his income from the modest family farm. The twins worked for other farmers from their early teens.
If Power’s early career was difficult as he struggled to make it past the rank of journeyman golfer, the past year has been dramatic, as he climbed a mammoth 442 places in the golf world rankings.
And Ned, now 74, admits that even he could not have foreseen his son’s stellar rise into golf’s elite.
‘I never could have had anything like that in my mind,’ he says.
The motivation for encouraging his son has its roots in regrets Ned has about his own family’s past. His father James was a talented athletics competitor and had the chance to represent Ireland. But the chance never came.
‘He won three championships in Munster in one day and it was there for him to go to Dublin to qualify for the Olympics but his dad wouldn’t let him go to Dublin,’ recalls Ned.
‘Philomena’s own family had a lot of sporting talent too. Her brothers Pat and Kieran [also Power] were fine footballers. Kieran was a big man but he was poetry in motion with the ball.’
Ned says he himself took some ‘wrong turns in life’ and wanted to ensure the same would not happen for Séamus.
‘I ended up frustrated. I still have regrets about things I didn’t do. I got an ag [agricultural] degree but never really used it and didn’t fit into the agricultural scene at all. So I said to the lads, “Whatever you wanted to do, we’d sit down and have a chat about it”.
‘The older lads wanted to work in construction and they now run their own company, and they’re happy. If you reach 35 or 40 years of age and you’ve failed in your dream, at least like McMurphy in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, you gave it a feckin’ try and you have no regrets about it. But I saw the frustration in my dad that he didn’t get to try to represent his country.’
Ned has stayed behind in the family home in west Waterford to watch Séamus tee off with the world’s best golfers at Augusta. But brothers Jack and Willie have gone over with a band of locals to cheer on the man who has become known locally as ‘the toast of Touraneena’.
Ned admits even watching from afar is difficult.
‘The word I’d use is anxious. Even though he’s 35 he’s still my baby in lots of ways and I know how his brain ticks over,’ he laughs.
‘I’d be anxious for him like that but I’m getting better. It’s maybe getting more confidence in him. We’ve been through a lot of ups and downs and there’s often been more downs.’
However, as a sign of Séamus’s promise, he points to an old photo showing six golfers representing Ireland at a championship tournament in 2005. They include Séamus, Shane Lowry and Rory McIlroy.
‘There’s only six of them in the photograph and three of them are in the Masters this week. That’s incredible.’
Despite the sacrifices Ned has made, he says he never gave a thought to Séamus becoming ‘world number whatever’.
He tells the MoS: ‘I was hoping that he’d make a living out of it and that he wouldn’t be too disappointed having chosen that pathway in life. But naturally if you’re a competitive person, you want to get better and better. Séamus never showed that side to me, though I think he was maybe protecting me from the bad times.’
While golf is an individualistic sport, with players often having big egos, Ned says Séamus was told by his coach as a youngster that, if anything, he was ‘too nice’.
‘He had a coach, Fred Twomey in Cork, he was the Munster coach. He’s a really great guy. He wrote a lovely letter wishing him well, but one of the things that struck me and still comes to my mind, is that he says something like, “You’re one of the best people I’ve ever coached. You have one flaw and it’s that you’re too nice. A lovely trait for a person, but not for a golfer.”
‘I think Séamus has caught a lot of people offside this past year because he’s a genuinely nice guy, but there’s a steel in him and that’s showed.’
‘Even though he’s 35 he’s still my baby’