Of course, if they call he will build it

Feature Golf Course: Philip Reidmeets a man whose golf-course construction firm has grown steadily and is now becoming a continental player

If you grow up on the Cork-Kerry border, chances are that the ball thrust into your hands is of the large, leather variety. So it was with Michael O'Leary, who grew up playing Gaelic football alongside, among others, a certain Eoghan O'Connell, who admittedly had far more prowess with a smaller, spherical ball and went on to claim Walker Cup success and, later, a livelihood as a tour pro until his career was foreshortened by injury.

For O'Leary, the attractions of golf - or a livelihood in the golf industry - came from having the sort of sharp mind the Gooch Cooper or someone of that footballing ilk would have in front of goal.

To this day, O'Leary self-deprecatingly describes his own golfing prowess as the ability to "play it badly".

Fortunately for him, he doesn't have to play it well for a living. What he does have to do brilliantly, though, is construct golf courses, and since he set up SOL Golf Course Construction in 1998, the company has built a reputation without parallel in the field. In this context, O'Leary is a plus-handicapper.

It was while working as a sub-contractor on the Lackabane course in Killarney that O'Leary and Phil Standing saw a potential niche in the market for a course-construction company.

Their timing, à la the Gooch, was impeccable. SOL - the "S" coming from Standing, the "OL" from O'Leary - took off, starting out with the two principals that year and growing to such an extent that, at the height of the construction season this year, there were 107 employees.

O'Leary and his wife, Marie, are now the two directors (having bought out Standing's share a couple of years ago, although the latter still works for the company and has the reputation of being one of the finest "shapers" around), and SOL has grown from being an Irish operation into one that now works on courses in Britain and has plans to develop further to continental Europe, with projects in Spain and Portugal among those on the drawing board.

Indeed, the reputation of this Irish company - based in Ballydesmond, Co Cork - is such that they have recently finished refurbishing Royal Birkdale ahead of next year's British Open.

Working on links courses has become something of a speciality; the upgrading of the Old Course at Lahinch, Dooks and Royal Dublin, the construction of the six new holes at Enniscrone and ongoing work at The Island and St Annes are among the projects undertaken.

O'Leary is a constructor, not an architect.

"It is a great challenge to work with a new architect," he says. "I love it. You get a feel for them after the first week or two. You know, the drawing takes you so far, but 90 per cent of the time you'll find most architects will have their own creativity coming as the golf course shells out."

The job of his team is to implement the vision of the course designer. It is, however, a vitally important task. Typically, in the case of a new golf-course development, the construction team move onto a green-field site.

As a case study, The Heritage at Killenard - which played host to the Seve Trophy last weekend - is a good indication of the work that takes place on the ground.

When SOL tackled the site in 2001, the company's machines moved 300,000 cubic metres of subsoil and then about 250,000 cubic metres of topsoil in creating mounds and hillocks and some 10 acres of lined, man-made lakes. To gauge the scale of the construction, the diesel bill for machinery on the site was around IR£18,000 a week.

"We will take it from a green field to handover, ready for play," says O'Leary, "which would involve shaping, earthmoving, drains, lakes, seeding, the irrigation system, the lake lining, et cetera.

"Normally we come in on day one and GPS (conduct an aerial survey of) the site. Then we get the layout from the design team, with their specification, and set it out. We'll route it out during construction, but more often than not things change.

"You'll have bunkers being changed and mounds being changed. The architect might do it with you on the field. But we'd follow a basic routing plan and then put in the different features or add features as we work. We cover everything from start to finish."

While the first port of call for constructors is to GPS the site, the next is invariably to remove the land of any grass or grain and then strip all the topsoil and move subsoil. It is what is called in the business "shelling" the site, to a sub-base level.

It is then that the constructor installs the irrigation system. There are two methods of installing drainage: the first before the grass is established; the second afterwards with slit drains that can involve up to 150,000 metres of drainage.

Most courses would also have between 60 and 90 bunkers.

With five new projects on their books for 2007 - the Nick Faldo-designed course at Lough Erne, the new Retief Goosen course in Longford, the Jeff Howes-designed course at Farnham House in Co Cavan, the Ron Kirby-designed Castlemartyr in Co Cork and another Howes design in Bunclody, Co Wexford, which runs down to the River Slaney - and other refurbishment work on existing courses, SOL have been busy throughout what has been an extremely difficult year weatherwise for everyone involved in the golf industry.

However, given the amount of golf-course development that has taken place in the Republic in the past decade, O'Leary would not be surprised if the number of new projects falls to around two a year in the next decade.

"There's been an average of five or six built here for the past four or five years. I think lifestyle housing and properties will still be the main sell, and the golf course is the carrot for that . . . but I still feel there is a strong market there, a more controlled market. And I believe it is going through a correction period, but I still believe lifestyle housing and properties will still be a want for the future."

Indeed, O'Leary believes Northern Ireland is the next market to be explored, and then there is the European market.

"I believe the new course at Lough Erne will set the precedent for all new courses up there to come up to that level," he says.

"Jim Tracy, the developer, has set the mark up there with a high specification and a great design. The Northern market is one that will definitely grow."

He adds: "We work with a lot of European architects as well and we will follow them (to the continent)."

O'Leary also makes the point that Ireland's architects - many now engaged in designing courses in continental Europe as well as here in Ireland - are "among the very top" in their profession.

"The standard of architects and their design teams is as high as anywhere," he asserts.

The constructors, those who shape the greens and create mounds and ensure that courses are built to withstand the vagaries of the Irish weather, are - like the greenkeepers - among the unsung heroes of the Irish golf industry.

But, then, it is their job . . . and once one course has been brought up to the level required, another piece of terrain - be it parkland or seaside - awaits.

There is always another site to move on to.