LETTERKENNY GOLF CLUB’S 2015 season will long be remembered by club Captain Gerard Duffy and all its members as being their award-winning year.
Shortly after receiving their environmental award from the All Ireland Tidy Towns Association in conjunction with the Letterkenny Tidy Towns committee, the Barnhill based club has received one of the highest accolades awarded by Ireland’s leading golf magazine, The Golfer’s Guide.
Photo caption: Letterkenny Golf Club Captain Gerard Duffy, club President Ann Condon and club PRO Eamonn Davis with the award of a Tipperary Crystal vase and obligatory bottle of champagne
With the uplifting Palmer Suite at the prestigious K Club hosting the award ceremony and guest of honour being the renowned Pat Ruddy, golf course architect, analyst and golf correspondent to many newspapers and magazines, the Letterkenny club’s representatives of Captain Gerard Duffy, club President Ann Condon and PRO Eamonn Davis.
Letterkenny’s delegation only too proud to collect the award of ‘Best Hidden Gem’ on behalf of the club members and, following a question and answer session with the good humoured and very knowledgeable guest of honour, Pat joined the Letterkenny table for a private chat on how the club was progressing and especially asked of the junior element for which he had great praise.
Ruddy proffered as to why Ireland and Donegal has become a mecca for overseas golfers.
Letterkenny Golf Club captain Gerard Duffy and PRO Eamonn Davis pictured with the guest of honour, Pat Ruddy
“When a person comes to Ireland, friendships are formed that last for decades,” he said. “We notice a visiting golfer and we embrace them, welcoming them onto our courses and offering our own brand of Irish hospitality.”
Ruddy has designed some of our country’s top courses including Ballyliffin, Portsalon, Rosapenna, Druids Glen and of course, he also designed and owns the European Golf Club located in Brittas Bay, Co Wicklow.
“Donegal is made for golf,” he added. “You can drive from course to course in just a couple of hours and play golf along the way. You have the luxury of playing a mixture of top class links and parkland courses within a one-hour drive of each other. In other countries, you may have to drive hundreds of miles from one course to another.
“It is hard not to be infected with Pat’s enthusiasm. I play golf most every day. I love to go down to the 12th hole at the European Club. It is beside the Irish Sea and is surrounded by high hills. It is lovely and quiet in the evening and I am like a baby with a bucket and spade in the sand. I could stay there forever.”
A larger than life character with passionate views on golf and design, Ruddy was a writer before turning his hand to architecture and construction – famously at the European Club, south of Dublin, which Ruddy founded, financed and built from scratch.
The European Club is his masterpiece, and it’s a layout that he has continued to tweak and modify over the years in a constant quest for course perfection. The construction is good, bunkers and greens in particular, and although there are a couple of awkward design areas the course is one of the best modern links anywhere in Europe, a feature that brought the one and only Tiger Woods to play.
Ruddy was duly invited to visit Letterkenny Golf Club in 2016, an offer which he so willingly accepted and all members will wait in anticipation to be beguiled by one of Ireland’s most humourous, knowledgeable and foremost golf course designer.
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