The local favorite
A spinney of trees blocked most of the green from his sight – certainly the portion where the pin was positioned. And a pair of hump-backed mounds were unfavourable deterrents too, colluding with the wet, clingy rough between his ball and the putting surface.
Never mind. Savouring the challenge, the most naturally gifted footballer in the land reverted to his old ‘left hand down’ grip with which he honed his Pitch & Putt skills as a young teenager. He drilled the ball quite fearlessly through the snarly grass and bounced it left and quite deliberately off the protruding mound on the edge of the green. Gooch seemed a little miffed he left himself twenty feet for par.
Kerry’s sorcerer is no Tour prospect. He plays off a handicap of 15 but that has more to do with the amount of time he gets to spend at his home club than natural ability.
Just as Cooper pictures the key plays on the football field, he has a facility to visualise the shot he wants to play around the greens in Killarney. And he conceded a while back that to be as competitive as possible, his old ‘hurley grip’ would have to be summoned for trick shots only.
“I had the hurley grip up to a few years ago, mainly from playing pitch and putt. I’m a member in Killarney since 2006 and I kept it going for a while at the golf, but I knew early on that if I was going to be playing a bit and realistic about getting my handicap down, I had to change to the conventional grip.”
Gooch is 28 now, hard to believe in some ways. A few years back we sat together for lunch and I really believed he was thinking of taking to Australia for a stint. If only to escape the goldfish bowl life in Killarney.
There are still traces of it, even as we trudge through the mist and rain around the back nine and between the nearly constructed tented village for the Open. One group stop their own game and train their camera phones on Gooch as he tees off on No 14. He balloons it high and right, and you see the fantastic story carrying already on the breeze. Jaysus, yer man Gooch isn’t up to much. On the previous par five thirteenth, a car beeps (twice) in salute as Killarney’s favourite son wields the driver. Perhaps because he nails the drive it doesn’t seem to miff him. Or maybe it’s because it’s scarcely the first time a cacophony of noise has greeted him at the key moment.
Settling down may be one reason, but there’s an acute sense about him that playing for Kerry is a special privilege that no-one has forever. Maybe in 2002, when he made his Croke Park debut, you’d expect as much but over the decade some justifiably feel Cooper doesn’t owe the green and gold much. Gooch wouldn’t be one of them.
As we prepare to drive off at No 11, he wonders whether the younger generation truly value the honour of wearing the famous jersey. Or even value a trial in the hope of wearing one. When Gooch had a Kerry minor trial, he took the previous day off work to be properly focused and prepared. Now? Well they shrug, don’t they, he says.
“I’m playing since I was six, and it’s something I’ve always aspired to. With the tradition of Kerry, it’s something I always aspired to. But every single day I think of players from smaller counties and wonder what drives them. They make the same effort — in fact more of an effort — but they have no big day out.
“Why do they do it? We get the rewards, if you’re doing well, you’re in the spotlight. But what’s their reward? That’s when you see the pure love of the game.”
His passion for golf is some way short of his love of the Kerry jersey, but competitive juices flow, whether it’s pins or goalposts he’s hunting.
“I really love coming out here in the evening for six or seven holes, nice and quiet. That’s what I’d call enjoying the game, but in a four-ball, I’d always be looking to win, and you’d go home sick if you lost. Once in a while we’d have a little Austin Stacks v. Dr Crokes fourball, Star (Kieran Donaghy) and (Daniel) Bohan against myself and Brossie (Eoin Brosnan). We made par to half the last and win one up the last time against them. Star was sick,” he smiles.
Unsurprisingly, the Irish Open home of Killeen is his favourite of the three courses in Killarney, the only 54 hole complex in Irish golf. “It disciplines you and your golf,” he admits. “If you’re wild in Killeen you’re punished, O’Mahony’s is more forgiving and Lackabane is quite open too. But Killeen is more challenging.”
He accepts that the lot of a 15 handicapper is inconsistency, but he swears it is something he will tackle when those hips can’t slide past corner backs anymore.
“Driving would probably be the strongest part of my game” — something I can attest to after a series of low, drilled exocets with his TaylorMade driver (note to Mr TaylorMade: he’s heard the new R11 is a sweet machine) — “but bringing down the handicap is more about getting up and down around the green. And to do that, playing more is key. That’s difficult with the football but eventually....”
Having a big game temperament won’t be a handicap to him any time soon. He never gets down on himself after a missed putt (or free, in another context), and Gooch doesn’t come across as a club thrower. “I’m not a roarer on the course! I’d be more likely to have a quiet word to myself.”
As we buggy down to the corner of the course where Bridget Gleeson’s old home is more alluring that the 15th hole, Gooch identifies Phil Mickelson and Rory McIlroy as his golfing models.
“The easy answer is McIlroy and the way he goes pures every shot, and goes for everything. Both with his temperament and his swing, he’s setting a really high bar for everyone. You don’t see the pitfalls at 22, and Rory’s playing as pure as he possibly could at the moment. He just goes for everything, and looks like he’s having fun on the course. Invariably that’s where you find your best performance. But I also love Mickelson’s imagination with stuff. That ability to take on the impossible shot.”
He was hoping to position himself around his favourite hole, the 18th, this weekend, but just like 2010, Croke Park duty comes first for Kerry’s captain.
He sneaked his young nephew in for fifteen minutes last year to watch three or four holes and saw himself in a national newspaper “enjoying the action” the following day.
However, he agrees, the buzz will be all around him and the town. “Killarney is a busy town but the atmosphere around the place, by day and night, was electric (last year). It was full of “such-and-such a player had a couple of pints in this pub last night or did you hear who finished up in that nightclub or restaurant?’, Cooper enthuses.
“Remember, it’s so long since the previous one (1992) that people forget there’s a new generation of golfers and young fans since then. The success of the Irish players in the majors is also having a real impact. I’ve never seen so many young fellas golfing in Killarney.”
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