Growing into an everyman's pursuit

CELEBRITY FANS/Niall Tobin, golf

When did you start playing golf?

When I was a kid growing up in Cork, on the north side of the city there was a place called “The Fair Field”, which was an abandoned fairground and public property.

As kids, we turned a corner of it into a pitch and putt course. We had a couple of clubs which belonged to the only man on our road who used to play golf.

We used to have to share the putter around.

For ordinary, working class people, golf was something other people did.

Willie O’Dwyer, who was the owner of Sunbeam Wolsey, put a pitch and putt course in the factory grounds.

He encouraged people to play pitch and putt, and it spread like wildfire.

From that, ordinary people began to play golf in Cork. Before that only parish priests, Garda superintendents and the like played the game.

Did you see Jimmy Bruen play?

When I was very young I saw him, but I was only a kid – I wouldn’t have known what he was doing. He lived down near the river.

I remember during the war when golf balls were very hard to come by, and when he was practising his drives, a lot of his drives used to go over into the water so when the tide used to go out, there were golf balls to be picked up.

He would reward anybody who brought a golf ball back with six pence.

At that time, golf balls were so priceless people used to repaint them.

What handicap are you?

That’s a secret.

What’s the lowest handicap you’ve been?

14.

What’s the best part of your game?

My putting – I’m a very good putter.

Did you ever get a hole in one?

I’ve got three. I had one at Little Island in Cork. I had one in Greystones and one, I think, in the old Rathfarnham nine-hole course.

Do you have a favourite golfer?

To me, Christy O’Connor snr was the greatest of them all.

Did you ever play with him?

I did, a couple of times. He was the pro in Royal Dublin, where I’m a member.

What was the silliest thing that happened to you on a golf course?

I was playing in a charity event and I was on Christy’s team. It was down in the Curragh, I think. Christy had attracted a local gallery, of course, about 150 people.

We came to about the 15th hole, a par three.

Having had a quick look at the hole, I took out an eight iron. When I got up on the tee, which was elevated, I noticed that I’d miscalculated the length of the hole.

What seemed to me to be a tree sticking up behind the green was actually in front of it.

Instead of being about 140 yards, the hole was another 100 yards along with that. But I was up now on the tee.

Christy was standing beside me and I was holding the club by the head, to conceal the fact that I had an eight iron in my hand.

He knew there was something up.

He was looking at my hand. So anyway I hit the ball and it didn’t go half the distance, but before I could put the club away this big hand came over and prized my fingers apart.

“Oh,” he said, looking at the club, “an eight iron. Strong man.”

He knew the minute I’d gotten up on the tee that I’d gotten the wrong club, but I didn’t want to go back because people would think that I was showing off.

He’d read the whole situation before I’d even hit the ball.

What is good about golf?

It’s a ceremony. There are lots of lovely things about golf which are nice; they’re stupid, but they’re nice.

There’s a civility to it, not that I practice that very much. There’s a code of honour – if you make a mistake or play a foul shot and nobody has seen it, you own up to it.

What’s the best golfing advice you’ve received?

I was doing a gig in Killarney when they were playing the Irish Open there.

On the day before the tournament started, the captain had a sort of a day where pros would play with members and that.

I was on a team with Mr Nick Faldo. It was the first time that he won the Irish Open there.

After about four holes he came over to me and he put his arm around me and said: “Look, old man, you’ve got to stop doing what you’re doing.”

I said: “What am I doing?”

To which he replied: “I’m damned if I know, but you’ve got to stop it.”

In an interview with Richard Fitzpatrick.