Having staged the Irish Open from 1993 to 1995, Mount Juliet's marketing people felt they could count on a spin-off from the event for only a further three years. After that, it would be necessary to stage another important tournament to maintain public awareness of the venue. Ergo last year's Irish Senior Open.
Druids Glen are entering a similar cycle. And according to chief executive Denis Kane, their spin-off period will depend "on how successfully we exploit our four-year association with the Irish Open".
Against this background, would it be possible to quantify the marketing value of an amateur event? More specifically, could the Co Sligo club assess the benefit of having the West of Ireland Championship back last weekend, after an absence of three years?
It would seem they can. According to secretary/manager Jim Ironside, it should deliver a boost of up to £15,000 in their green-fee revenue this year, quite apart from revenue of more than £18,000 on the event itself.
As a consequence, the club are hoping to reach £250,000 from green-fees, given the additional boost of their new nine holes at Bomore, which will be officially opened on May 1st. But, as Ironside put it: "This still leaves us about three years behind the leading Kerry courses, from a revenue standpoint."
Meanwhile, the "West" is clearly a lot more important than we might imagine. "The extent of its international image is quite surprising," he said. "This is taken on board by tour operators, and it also means additional publicity for us in newspapers and magazines. Of course, word of mouth from golfers is priceless.
"Good news travels fast and getting the West back was clearly good for the club," Ironside went on, before adding with a wry smile, "but bad news travels a lot faster. We learned that to our cost in 1997. Now we are attempting to make up the lost ground."
While the championship was away from Rosses Point for the last three years, Co Sligo were spending close on £400,000 on restoration work to their celebrated links and on the construction of the new nine. Jonathan Tucker, from Bingley, designed the Bomore holes, and all of the greenkeeping work was done to the highest standards by their own George Paterson.
They say that the first step towards overcoming a problem is to acknowledge that it exists. In this context, Co Sligo owe much to their centenary captain, Oliver McDonagh, who had the courage to admit: "The realisation came to us that we were a Harry Colt layout which had been living on past glory."
Now they are embarking on a new beginning, with greater enthusiasm than any of them could have imagined.
"After that, I'll be 47 and I don't want to be out here slugging my brains out." - Greg Norman on his decision to quit tournament golf at the end of next year.
Earlier this week, a female voice on the phone to my home informed me that Augusta National were on the line. Could this be it? After all the care I had taken to be scrupulously honest, truthful and fair in my reporting of the US Masters over the years, was I now persona non grata down Magnolia Lane?
Like the youngster on the Buttercrust ad, my blood ran cold. And when the caller identified herself as the credentials' manager, it positively froze. She went on to inform me that a member of Pine Valley - "we have friends everywhere" - had told them of a certain piece in The Irish Times.
Just when I was on the point of grovelling shamelessly and pleading for forgiveness, the caller added: "I understand that you would know Colin Byrne." Oh happy day! "Well," she went on, "we were very pleased with the delightful piece he did in your newspaper on Tuesday morning about our caddiemaster Tom Van Dorn and the Masters caddieshack. Perhaps you could send us some copies."
Small matter that none of my efforts seemed to merit even a modest mention. I was safe for another year.
Looking at caddies of different age and from a different time, I was drawn to a charming piece by Henry Longhurst in defence of the more youthful exponents. And he clearly disagreed with the view of the then secretary at Deal, who exploded during the Halford Hewitt tournament: "Boys! Don't speak to me of these boys. I'll murder one of them before this tournament is over."
Longhurst took a more conciliatory view. As he wrote: "The more expert of my assistants (caddies), having learnt the value of silence in golf, waited until the fourth before informing me of his home in Middle Street, his sister who works for the doctor, and the impending celebrations for her 21st birthday.
"Next morning, hauling it from the bosom of his miniature battledress, he handed me a brown paper parcel. In it was a large slice of the birthday cake - raisins, plums, pink icing and all. `Didn't go to bed till half past 10,' he said. `Tst, tst,' I replied, not revealing the hour at which the last Old Carthusian had turned in."
Longhurst went on: "Boys are the golfer's perfect alibi. They snivel, hiccup, wander off looking for larks' nests, rattle the clubs or, as at one critical moment at Deal, drop the flagstick with a resounding thump. You can always blame `that wretched boy'. And how gratifying once again to be shouting `Stand still there!' in one's best barrack-square voice and not be answered back. All this, and pink icing too."
Peering down into the valley, water beckons on the right, a cavernous bunker lurks to the left and a Celtic cross of green drawf herbs and yellow spirea is woven into the hillside. The short 12th at Druids Glen contains more than sufficient spectacle to ease the pain of failure, but experienced goats are immune to such distractions.
Which explains the rather splendid scoring by a particular fourball in the annual Goat outing there last Saturday. Government Minister Seamus Brennan (18, Milltown), Ronan King (12, Greystones), Tim Gilbert (16, Loughrea) and Tim McStay (12, Kilternan), all had birdies with their 150-yard shots from the elevated tee.
And dammit, didn't they all have shots there as well.
For the current issue of Golf Digest, Lee Trevino has listed the best players he has seen in every key department of the game. And it makes for fascinating reading, especially his description of the best shot he has witnessed.
It came from Sam Snead, who, at 66, was playing in the 1978 Inverrary Classic in Florida. He and Trevino were on a long par four where, from "a real tight lie", Snead had 220 yards to the hole for his second shot, with the wind against and a little from left to right.
He proceeded to hit a high hook with a driver to leave the ball 12 feet from the hole. "I couldn't believe it," said Trevino. "I just stopped walking and stared at the ball up on the green. Now, I've seen a lot of great golf in the last 32 years, but I've never seen anything like that shot."
So to the list: Best shotmaker - Snead; Best long irons - Jack Nicklaus; Best driver - Greg Norman; Best middle irons - Johnny Miller; Best competitor - Arnold Palmer; Best sand player - Gary Player; Best fairway woods - George Knudson; Best player in bad weather - Tom Watson; Best putter - Ben Crenshaw; Best chipper - Hubert Green; Best short irons - Chi Chi Rodriguez; Best trouble-shooter - Seve Ballesteros.
This Day In Golf History . . . On April 29th, 1949, Mary McKenna was born in Dublin. In a distinguished playing career, her main achievements were a record nine successive Curtis Cup appearances from 1972 to 1986, eight Irish Close Championship triumphs from 1969 to 1989 and victory in the British Strokeplay Championship in 1979.
Teaser: A player's ball comes to rest against a movable obstruction. The player lifts the ball and drops it away from the obstruction instead of removing the obstruction as provided in Rule 24-1. What is the ruling?
Answer: The player incurs a penalty of one stroke under Rule 18-2a and he must replace his ball before playing his next stroke. Otherwise, he loses the hole in matchplay and he incurs a total penalty of two strokes in strokeplay.
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