Pampering Adare Manor's special guests: 'We want to ensure they make the most of their couple of days here'

Overseeing the mammoth project that is the JP McManus Pro-Am at Adare Manor is the resort's deputy GM, John Kelly. "This is the sixth pro-am that JP will host and he said he wants this one to be the best. Things are lining up nicely for it to be the best.'

John Kelly at Adare Manor

The scoring format for the JP McManus Pro-Am is a shamble, a tweaked version of a Texas scramble - it is a safe prediction that at no other point across the two-day event will the term be used to describe anything that is happening at Adare Manor.

Thousands of hours of both professional and unpaid local community effort have gone into ensuring that the best golfers in the world, and 40,000 spectators each day, enjoy a unique experience on Monday and Tuesday.

The figures associated with staging such an event - which contains 11 of the world's top dozen ranked players, world number eight Victor Hovland is the missing man - are staggering.

"There are over 600 marshals, all volunteering," explained John Kelly, appointed Deputy General Manager at the resort in March and immediately tasked with project managing a tournament postponed twice in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic.

"There's a huge amount of preparation over the last three years that has gone into this, since the original planning in 2019. Earlier this year we were able to pick up from where the planning had been paused in previous years. A lot of detail, a lot of work, a lot of voluntary effort from people not just here at Adare Manor but across the community and the European Tour to local suppliers, the emergency services, the Civil Defence, the Order of Malta, the Red Cross, St John's Ambulance, all of these people are volunteering their time to ensure that the event is the best it can be and that it's a successful and fun couple of days."

The local tidy towns group has been keen to play a role.

"They are what we're calling our welcome ambassadors at every entry point to the pro-am, so you'll be met and greeted by a local person from Adare," said Kelly.

The investment of time and energy from the local community will be rewarded in the form of donations to charitable organisations in the midwest region.

The very first pro-am, won by Roger Chapman at Limerick Golf Club back in 1990, raised €1.2m. By 2010, and the fifth staging of the tournament, the pot had swelled to €43.7m. In total, over €140m has been divvied out, a figure that looks set to spike significantly after this week's event.

The success of the tournament ultimately comes down to the strength of the incredible field. The current holders of all four major championships - Matt Fitzpatrick (2022 US Open), Scottie Sheffler (2022 US Masters), Justin Thomas (2022 US PGA) and Collin Morikawa (2021 Open) - will be present. So will Leona Maguire and scores of celebrities.

"Padraig Harrington, the new US Seniors Open champion, is here of course," noted Kelly. "Most of the players arrived over the weekend, Saturday and Sunday."

Then, of course, there is Tiger Woods, winner of the third staging of the tournament in 2000 and, probably, the player that many of the 40,000 will be travelling to see. The 15-time major winner arrived early on Sunday via helicopter, but hasn't competed since withdrawing from the US PGA championship after a third-round 79 in Oklahoma in mid-May. He sat out the subsequent US Open due to the ongoing effects of the car smash in February of 2021 which left him with serious leg injuries. Despite all that, the trip to Limerick has remained on his schedule.

"We're in touch with all the players, to be fair," said Kelly, careful not to focus on just one of a galaxy of stars. "Matt Fitzpatrick, the new US Open champion, will be here so every player will have their own plans and some are here for longer stays, some are here for shorter stays but we're in touch with all of the different players to make sure they arrived safely, that they get checked in and register properly and that they have a great experience. It is a charity event and we want to make sure that they're comfortable, that they have a good time and make the most of their couple of days or longer here in Adare."

A park and ride facility involving Limerick Racecourse and the nearby Woodlands Hotel will help get spectators in and out.

With the hosting of the Ryder Cup in 2027 in mind, organisers will be keeping a close eye on how smoothly it all runs.

"We'll have up to 40,000 spectators each day so crowd management and crowd capacity across the course, certainly around each hole, how they're roped, access and egress points, those are all things we'll be looking carefully at," said Kelly. "The traffic management plan for the event is another big area we'll be monitoring. Then from a sustainability viewpoint, we've just been accredited with an ISO standard for sustainability for golf events so that's something we've been working on really since 2020 when we'd planned the original pro-am. A lot went into that, work around waste management and suppliers that we use so we're really looking forward to reviewing how all that works."

At the centre of it all will be McManus, a visible and hands-on figure, according to Kelly.

"Very much so, it is the JP McManus pro-am and he's very much involved in the planning and the detail. There is a pro-am committee as well, with lots of different people from lots of different areas of specialisation, to help out, but certainly JP is very much involved in the detail of every day to help ensure that things are coming along and that we're matching his expectations and fundamentally that the event will run off smoothly. This is the sixth pro-am that JP will host and he said he wants this one to be the best and things are lining up nicely for it to be the best."