Open fans can double their fun at the ‘Fringe’
And no one is pushing the welcome mat out more than East Cork neighbours Castlemartyr Golf Club, with club professional Brady Sherwood putting on a ‘Fringe Festival’ at the attractive and accessible inland links course designed by esteemed US architect Ron Kirby.
Things are already looking up for Castlemartyr as the green shoots of economic recovery begin to sprout in Ireland’s golf industry, with Sherwood reporting the club is attracting more green fees and golf societies than for the same period last year.
“We did just short of 28,000 rounds last year and there’s around 31,000 booked for this so we’re looking forward to a good summer,” the Australian pro said. “Of course that depends on the weather but Irish golfers are unbelievable, they’ll come out in anything and the golf course is sand based and doesn’t get affected too badly. Things are looking very good for the year, especially with the Irish Open down at Fota.”
With some European Tour players staying in Castlemartyr’s five-star resort during the tournament and golfers of a more modest standard playing the 6,200-yard inland links course, there is sure to be a good golfing vibe in East Cork, particularly as the club is hosting a Junior Golf Ireland Tournament on Sunday, June 15 and the Golf Digest Volvo Open on June 23.
Sherwood added: “We’re doing what we call the ‘fringe festival’ during that week and it’s an open week with events including a foursomes, singles, a scramble, all leading up to the Open. And we’ve societies booked in in and around the Irish Open so hopefully it will give us all a kick.
“The bookings are still to come in for that week and if the weather is decent I can’t imagine why we wouldn’t be extremely busy.”
Castlemartyr’s fringe festival kicks off on Monday, June 15 with a three-person scramble team event (entry €90 per team). The following day will see a ‘Tuesday Blues’ Stableford event for singles off the blue markers followed by a ‘Wednesday Whites’ in the same format but off the white tees, the entry fee for both events being €25 per person. The final event is on Thursday, June 19 when Castlemartyr stages a foursomes team competition (entry €60 per team of two).
“It’s a very walkable golf course, not hugely undulating and with a real linksy feel to it. And it’s open to any calibre golfer — plus 4, off 36, you walk off 18 and you’re good to go again, it’s very enjoyable. And in Irish Open week we’re also putting on a couple of barbecues at the clubhouse in the afternoons, a nine-hole chicken run, just a few things that will allow people to go down to Fota and watch the golf and then mix it up and get involved themselves here with us.”
Castlemartyr members are also getting involved at Fota with more than 25 of them volunteering to marshal at the Irish Open. “There’s a huge buzz around the Irish Open coming back to Cork and everyone should be getting involved,” Sherwood said. “A lot of Fota members play here and our members go down there a lot too and it’s a huge buzz for them.”
One of the joys of any Irish Open, whatever the venue, is the places in the field offered to Ireland’s leading amateurs and this month’s tournament is no exception with a quartet of the GUI’s best and brightest stars invited to tee it up alongside the European Tour professionals at Fota Island.
West Waterford and NUI Maynooth Paddy Harrington scholar Gary Hurley, Ballymena rising star Dermot McElroy, Irish Golf Writers’ amateur of the year Robbie Cannon and The Island’s Gavin Moynihan pictured will all be on parade in Cork between June 19 and 22.
Moynihan, in particular, is in a rich vein of form having won the Scottish Open Stroke Play Championship at Panmure last weekend in a come-from-behind victory that echoed Rory McIlroy’s Wentworth success the previous weekend in the BMW PGA Championship.
The 19-year-old, who won the Irish Stroke Play in 2012, had trailed Australia’s Geoff Drakeford by six shots going into the fourth and final round with the leader looking set for a wire-to-wire victory.
Walker Cupper and University of Alabama senior Moynihan, though, applied some serious pressure with a closing 67 while Drakeford limped home with a 75.
And having emulated Philip Walton’s win in 1991, Moynihan will this weekend try to follow Pádraig Harrington and McIlroy in scooping the St Andrews Links Trophy, one of the world’s leading amateur tournaments, staged on the Home of Golf’s New and Old courses.
Lisburn’s Paula Grant will be aiming for back-to-back titles at Enniscrone Golf Club next week when she bids to defend the Ladies Irish Close Championship (June 13-17).
The revered links plays host to one of the largest gatherings of Ireland’s top female amateurs, all hoping to topple Grant following her 19th hole victory over Lisa Maguire in last year’s championship at Ballybunion. This year’s hosts, Enniscrone, have high hopes for their own golfers, Rita McGoldrick and Sarah Helly, who will be vying to come out on top of the 70-player field and lift the Ita Wallace Trophy on home turf.
