Inside Golf: Olivia Mehaffey bullish as Irish women target Euro glory
Now, it seems, we have a plethora of top players including the world’s No 1 amateur in Leona Maguire. But it doesn’t stop there.
The future looks bright and thanks to the efforts of the ILGU’s High Performance panel, we head into the height of the summer season with high hopes of making a winning impact on the international scene for the first time since McKenna, Madill, Clare Hourihane and Eavan Higgins were joined by the Wickham sisters Phil and Carol in winning the 1983 European Ladies Team Championship at Royal Waterloo.
32 years is a long time ago, but there are compelling reasons to believe that Ireland’s women golfers can match the recent brilliance of the men, who won the Home Internationals last year and finished second in the Europeans to Spain.
At least that’s the feeling Olivia Mehaffey has about her Irish team-mates and the great strides made over the past year and as she counts down to the European Ladies Team Championship at Helsingør Golf Club in Denmark from July 7-11.
Quite apart from the obvious brilliance of Leona Maguire, Mehaffey has emerged as the next big thing, thanks to three early season wins and last week’s run to the semi-finals of the Ladies’ British Open at Portstewart, where she fell to her future US college team- mate, the Swede Linnea Strom.
With seven of the 10 Irish entrants making the matchplay stages and three going as far as the last 16 — Ireland was the only “Home” nation to make that stage of the competition — we are clearly doing something right.
“We have got a strong team this year — the Irish ladies, we’ve really stepped it up, and a lot of that is down to our High Performance programme,” says Mehaffey, who is destined for Arizona State University at the end of next year.
“And it’s great to have Leona back. She is going to be a massive asset to our Europeans team.”
The 15-strong ILGU High Performance panel now meets every six weeks with manager David Kearney and his team of expert coaches, from fitness and nutrition specialist Robbie Cannon to psychologist Dr Lee-Ann Sharpe, physiotherapist Sharon Morris, short game and long game coach Chris Jelly and putting guru Donal Scott.
Mehaffey has certainly reaped the benefits, winning the Irish Girls Under 18 Open Strokeplay for the third year in a row and then going on to complete a hat-trick of victories with wins in the prestigious Helen Holm Scottish Open Stroke Play and the Welsh Ladies Open Stroke Play Championships in successive weeks.
She puts a lot of her success down to the fitness work she’s done with Cannon and that bodes well for the rest of the Irish team as we head into the meat of the season.
The same could be said for her fitness, which has improved so much under Cannon that she’s now hitting the ball high for the first time in her life.
“Robbie is great and I honestly think that’s made the difference this year,” Mehaffey says of her fitness. “My ball striking is so much better. I am hitting it higher when it was low before and it’s make such a big difference to by ball flight.
“I have been able to get on the inside and play a draw instead of always being over the top and low. Before, I always hit over the top and I literally spent four years trying to stop and I couldn’t do it. My angle of attack was really steep as well but just working this year it has come down and I stopped looking at it. Then I just noticed that with all the work I had done, it had come down naturally without doing anything to my swing.”
Certain now to make the world’s Top 100 when the World Amateur Golf Ranking is updated tomorrow, she’s determined to push and finish the season strongly for a change.
“I always seem to start my season well and not finish it as strongly, so I am going to stay on top of everything and keep up with my practice and be more consistent this year,” she vows.
As for Portstewart, she says: “I think I’ll look back and I’ll be really happy. Right now I am disappointed because I was so close. But I went way beyond my expectations and Linnea is so good, I knew I had to play really well to beat her. She had a lot of birdies and was really impressive. She was at a different standard, really.
“Playing with her at Arizona State is going to work wonders for my game when I join her there in another couple of years.”
The Irish Ladies Close Championship at magnificent Rosapenna is next on the agenda for Mehaffey followed by the Vagliano Trophy match with Continental Europe at Malone.
With Lisburn’s Paula Grant making it into the quarter-finals at Portstewart and with so many talented teenagers on the rise, including Junior Vagliano Trophy-bound Mairead Martin from Killarney and Lurgan’s Annabel Wilson, the future looks bright for Irish women’s golf.
All that’s needed is the OK from Dubai Duty Free but we hear from two reliable sources that the Irish Open will be played at The K Club from May 19-22 next year.
Scarifying of the back tees at Palmer Course has already begun, another little bird informs us, and with the 70-room extension to the hotel due to be completed in time, it appears that Michael Smurfit’s parkland gem will once again play host to the best players in Europe.
If that date is confirmed, it would mean sandwiching the Irish Open between The Players at Sawgrass and the BMW PGA at Wentworth in what is an already congested golfing calendar because of August’s Olympics Games in Brazil.
What that means for the field is unclear but while Rory McIlroy will tee it up, as expected, it remains to be seen if he makes as big a commitment to 2016 given the huge demands made on his time this year and the number of favours he now owes a host of big names.
Having already handed the European Tour a sponsor on a plate — Dubai Duty Free are waiting for the results of their review of Royal Co Down before extending their one-year deal — it’s time for the event to promote itself without putting the burden of responsibility on one of our busiest stars, who already does his bit for Irish golf as world No 1.
It’s the job of Fáilte Ireland to promote our great golf courses to the wider world, especially considering the importance of golf to the Irish and European economies.
According to Sports Marketing Surveys Inc, the golf industry in Great Britain and Ireland contributed €6.2bn to the economy of Europe in 2012 at a time when State investment in golf promotion has clearly fallen well below par here.
Subsequent studies concluded that England contributed 65% of that €6.2bn, which means that Ireland, Scotland and Wales contributed €2.2bn.
Proportionally speaking, Irish golf is edging closer to become a €1bn industry. Isn’t it time we had an Irish Open that can stand on its own two feet? And if that’s not possible, shouldn’t Fáilte Ireland be doing everything in their power to push the event?
A reader recently asked if the Confederation of Golf in Ireland (CGI) was ready to step up its effort to increase participation in the game by taking a leaf out of the GAA’s book when it comes to summer camps.
The answer is yes, but you’re going to have to be patient. Very patient.
The Kellogg’s GAA Cúl Camps have been a great success but there is no equivalent in golf, and costs vary wildly from one professional or part of the country to the other, especially if you are not a member of a golf club.
Prices of between €70 and €100 for a four-day camp are frequent south of the border, whereas in Northern Ireland there appears to be no shortage of golf camps for non-club members for £40-£45 (€55-€62) for similar if not longer times.
Soccer and GAA camps are far better value right now, which means that golf is losing ground at a time when parents and children are keen to get involved.
John Roche, the CGI’s Director of Golf and Business Development, is keen to get going but time is marching on.
“Many of the PGA professionals working both in clubs and outside offer summer camps and the Confederation offers them the opportunity to promote these on the activity map on our website, www.cgigolf.org,” Roche writes.
“We are looking at best practice in other countries that promote golf camps from a central body and indeed we are looking at what other sports do in Ireland in this important area.
“So for 2015 our role is to promote the work of clubs and PGA pros who are offering camps and also to study what else can be done to help push golf in the summer camp market.
“Our recent [Irish Open] Skills challenge along with our club and school taster days and get into golf programmes have all proven very popular so the development of a summer camp offering with the PGA seems logical.”
Few tournaments in Irish golf command as much goodwill as the Mullingar Scratch Trophy which will be played on Sunday August 2 and Monday 3 at the famous James Braid track, thanks to the largesse of sponsors Mullingar Electrical.
As usual around this time, Mullingar’s indefatigable Albert Lee makes sure that one of the illustrious past winners poses for a picture with the officers of the club to help promote what has become an institution in the Irish game.
On this occasion, 1996 winner Peter Lawrie and 1991 winner Paul McGinley, did the honours alongside President Brian Reidy, Captain Michael Duffy and Peadar Conlon from sponsors Mullingar electrical during the recent Dubai Duty Free Irish Open at Royal County Down.
The event is a crucial one for the best amateur golfers in Ireland as the 72-hole stroke play format provides them with a chance to test themselves and escape the frustration of matchplay for a few days.
Thanks to the efforts of men like Albert and Joe Healy before him, players are made to feel especially important. And while it no longer attracts overseas stars and even finds if tough to get all the top Irish players to tee it up, it retains a special place in the hearts of great past winners from Des Smyth, Darren Clarke and Pádraig Harrington to Rory McIlroy.
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