Farewell and best wishes to David Keating
POPULAR golf professional David Keating left Killarney Golf Club recently after almost eleven years of outstanding service to the club, its members and its visitors, and I would personally like to take this opportunity to pay a little tribute to him.
After ten successful years as Professional at Charleville Golf Club where he built up a reputation as one of the country’s leading club professionals specialising in coaching and custom club fitting, David took up his duties at Killarney in January of 2008 following in the footsteps of another famous Corkman, Tony Coveney who had been at the helm for almost forty years.
During his term at the lakeside club, nobody did more to enhance the club’s reputation nationally and internationally than David and in a recent newspaper interview General Manager Cormac Flannery bemoaned his loss saying: “We will miss David’s commitment, professionalism and expertise, which he displayed every single day of his 11-year tenure.
He promoted Killarney tirelessly at home and abroad and we’ve had thousands of golfers play at the club over the years who may otherwise never have done so. His contribution operationally towards looking after our membership and visiting golfers since 2008 has been immense, and his financial contribution to the club since becoming an independent contractor in 2013 has been a huge part of our financial success since becoming a members’ club.”
David’s loss will also be seriously felt by those individuals and teams that he coached over the years at Killarney as the club enjoyed huge success locally and nationally.
In a statement to the members of Killarney GC David said that he was desperately disappointed to leave. His reasons for doing so are between himself and Killarney GC and really none of my business, so I’d just like to acknowledge his achievements as an ambassador, a coach, an outstanding club professional and, above all, a gentleman, and I sincerely wish him and his family well wherever the future takes them and I hope our paths will cross again, sometime soon.