Adare: true test of how golf is meant to be played

ANOTHER sporting monkey off Ireland’s back, thank God — and thank Pádraig Harrington for that.

Thanks also, however, to the people responsible for Adare Manor Hotel and Golf Resort, for giving us a timely reminder of what the game of golf is supposed to be all about.

For those of us who are in its grip, every day we go out on the course is a challenge. It’s a major challenge that tests so many things about us.

To even get to grips with that challenge, never mind overcoming it, so many elements of our very being have to be right. Physically, we need to be in good shape — to really swing a club on the tee-box, you need to be right, feeling good.

The head has to be right, properly focused, with the right balance of confidence and determination, and — of course — absolute concentration on the shot in hand. Every shot.

You need to be able to play every club in your bag, able to play every shot in the book, because with golf being such an ever-changing challenge, at some stage in practically every round you are going to find yourself in a situation you’ve never, or rarely, found yourself in before.

The satisfaction in golf is in overcoming all those challenges, in taking on all those odds and somehow putting that ball in that hole in the number of strokes for which that hole was designed. Take away that challenge, and you take away that which is at the core of golf.

In too many courses across Europe, across the world, that is exactly what’s been happening in professional golf. The challenge has been eroding.

People have been blaming the equipment for this, the technology in club and ball design that allows the pros — that allows us all — to hit the ball ever further and further. They have a point, certainly, but the problem isn’t in the equipment. The problem is in the set-up of the courses being played by these professionals. All too often it’s being made all too easy with generous fairway width, generously cut rough, and generous pin placement on the greens, inviting the pros to ‘grip it and rip it’ with no fear of real penalty.

Reason? Popular appeal. This way, the fans can ooh and aah at the massive drives boomed out by the fearless gorillas on the tee-box. They can roar and shout as the succession of birdies and eagles hit the cup. Great spectacle alright, but it’s not golf.

That is why I take my hat off to those responsible for what happened in Adare at the weekend. They brought this noble sport back to where it ought to be; it was a noble setting, hosted by noble people, and it was played out to its gripping conclusion by two noble players in Harrington and Bradley Dredge.

Adare Manor was once the home of the Earl of Dunraven; its owners, Tom and Judy Kane, have brought their own nobility to Adare. Think of the courage it took to make the original purchase, back in the late 80s; a couple of million pounds — would you or I have taken that risk?

Would we have had the courage to hire one of the most renowned architects of all time to design a golf course; would we have had the vision? Having established ourselves, would we then have taken the added risk of bidding for a major tournament, of going it alone as hosts, with no title sponsor?

To cap it all, would we have had the absolute courage to return this game to its roots, and set up a course that would actually challenge the pros, that would punish errant shots, that would make even these expert practitioners pause over every shot, force them to plot, to plan, to really play their way around the course?

I spoke to a lot of those pros over the four days in Adare. One who really impressed me was David Higgins, a guy who, on the European Tour as currently constituted, would probably be called a journeyman pro.

In Adare, however, he finished tied 37th, and would have finished a whole lot better had he had any luck at all.

He said: “This is proper golf, the way it was meant to be. It rewards a guy who hits the ball properly off the tee, not just stands up and belts it 350 yards without having to worry where it lands. You’ve got to shape your shots, you’ve got to think on every single shot, and if you’re slightly off you’re really penalised. You’ve got to be precise. I made a mistake on the 18th (third round), wasn’t thinking straight and dropped a shot. No reason other than I wasn’t keyed on to what I should have been doing — that’s the way golf should be. I like this kind of golf course. Looking at the scoreboard, the guys who are playing the best golf are out in front, which is a fair way of measuring it.”

Exactly.

Higgins did have one suggestion, that the rough around the greens could be cut back a little further, allowing the players to get a club on the ball, bring chipping into play. Other than that, leave it as it was for this year.

Next year?

Looking forward to it already.

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