OBITUARY: Christy O’Connor Senior - He ‘flows through the ball like fine wine’
When a man from a sports-obsessed island like this one achieves as much as Christy O’Connor, it was inevitable he would assume legendary status and rarely if ever have a public moment to himself.
From time to time, the attention got to Senior, who passed away on May 14, aged 91, but the esteem in which he was rightly held by adoring fans never wavered. It was as if the golf-playing constituency suffered a major catastrophe when news of his demise was confirmed last Saturday.
We grew up in awe of the man, his achievements and magnificent swing, rejoicing in his many great victories and disappointed when he came up short, often by inches, in his many unavailing but magnificent challenges for the British Open.
As enormous good fortune would have it, I got to meet the man in a professional capacity and hung on his every word as he recounted the good and not so good days of his marvellous career. And there came the day when I was drawn to play on his team in a pro-am in the Canary Islands. Even though he couldn’t have been more supportive, helpful and sympathetic, I was such a quivering wreck under his gaze, that gripping the club became a major problem. It almost entirely due to his sorcery that later in the day my name was called out as part of the winning team. We celebrated well with Christy’s hearty laugh, one of the more memorable elements of that and several other social occasions.
I use the word “meet” rather than “know” Christy. I believe the esteemed golf writer Peter Dobereiner got it right when he once noted “people see O’Connor differently. To some, he is a quiet, shy man. To some, a hellraising extrovert, eager for a fist-fight. To some, a moody bore. To some, a warm and witty companion. There are as many O’Connors as there are people who think they know him.”
Despite insinuations to the contrary, O’Connor wasn’t a great drinker but he did love the social side of life which meant now and then he did have a few too many. He described in his 1985 autobiography how one such soiree occurred during the 1963 World Cup matches at St Nom La Breteche, near Paris. Minutes before his tee time the following morning, he was to be found in the locker room nursing a hangover and pleading with an esteemed golf writer from an English newspaper to bring him some coffee. When it was pointed out it wouldn’t be seemly for the Irish legend to be seen making his way to the first tee with a jug of coffee in his hands, Christy told him: “Fine, then, get some very black coffee and lots of the stuff and if you want to put a stiffener in, I’ll leave the measure up to yourself. Go down the first fairway to the 200 metre marker, from there march off 65 paces to your right and wait for me in the woods.”
Our man did faithfully as instructed, even if he must have felt a little silly holding a steaming pot of coffee and very doubtful as to whether O’Connor could land his tee shot anywhere in the vicinity. No worries. He heard the crack of the ball off a driver and then the tell-tale rustle of the ball crashing through the branches and leaves before it landed at his feet. Soon after, O’Connor arrived on the scene, gratefully accepted the reviver and the hair-of-the-dog before setting off happily for another day at the office.
The writer reflected: “It was one of the greatest tee shots of our time considering the unspeakable pressure.”
People loved to relate such stories, some like this one based on a degree of fact, and others undoubtedly apocryphal. In his autobiography, O’Connor referred to what “was generally regarded as “the Stoke Poges Black-Eye Affair”. It concerned a row between himself and Ryder Cup team-mate and good friend Harry Weetman after the second round of the Agfa Gevaert tournament in 1968. Both men had put away a good few jars before Weetman challenged O’Connor to a fight.
“I was never one to walk away from such intimidation and one word borrowed another and next thing we were out on the steps of the imposing manor,” he wrote. “Smack! Harry biffed me flush in the face and I was sent tumbling back into the flower beds.”
Christy insisted the only two punches in the row were thrown by Weetman and the outcome was an ugly black eye covered by broad sun glasses on the tee the following morning followed by a £50 fine imposed by the PGA. Both men later shook hands and became the best of pals again.
The incidents in Paris and Stoke Poges might suggest Christy O’Connor was something of a hellraiser but that would be well wide of the mark. Two things mattered more to him than anything — his wife Mary and beloved family, twins Christopher and Peter and daughters Marguerite, Therese, Joan, and the late Anne-Marie. And golf.
His deep love for Mary and the kids was palpable. Anything he could possibly do for them was done without hesitation and total determination. While his success as a golfer was widely attributed to a God-given gift and with every good reason, it is equally true he worked as hard as it was possible to do in his formative years in Galway and later on the beach at Dollymount on his way to earning worldwide recognition as one of the finest ever strikers of a golf ball.
While Christy O’Connor was a proud Irishman and defended his corner fearlessly when the need arose, Ireland itself was equally proud of him. How could it be otherwise when he and Harry Bradshaw combined to have his country’s name inscribed on the World Cup trophy in 1958, while he made 10 appearances in the Britain & Ireland Ryder Cup team and numbered two Dunlop Masters titles in his 24 international tournament wins. He was inducted into Golf’s Hall of Fame in 2009.
Pádraig Harrington is exactly half O’Connor’s 91 years, but he revered Christy as much as any Irishman. After attending the funeral on Tuesday morning, he arrived at The K Club and with his mouth visibly quivering with emotion, stated with the utmost sincerity: “If I won the Irish Open this week, I would definitely say I won it for Christy. The connection is there. My dad wouldn’t have played the game and so ultimately I wouldn’t have played the game only for Christy O’Connor senior. It was because of him dad played golf. He was the big man at the time. Everyone wanted to be Christy O’Connor.”
And of all the tributes paid to his golf swing over the years, perhaps the best is from Lee Trevino, the great American, who observed: “Christy flows through the ball like fine wine.”
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