Guess what boys and girls, old Gar drove on both sides of the road today and it was legal both times. Nancy and I were on the OTHER side of the road during the Irish morning earlier today as we headed for the airport and on the RIGHT side when we headed for home after arriving in Pittsburgh. Even better, our luggage arrived with us. Life is good.

We had a fun day with Jon and Elaine Kiger yesterday as we headed for Callen near Kilkenny to meet Eddie Kennedy, a good friend who Jon met several years ago when he was looking for a pub that would pour a good pint. The five of us drove around the Irish countryside and visited a huge old castle. Yours truly was at the wheel and our friend Eddie complimented me on my driving which made my day. From the noises I heard in the back seat, I don’t think Elaine agreed with Eddie. I believe Elaine’s best moment of the day was when she was able to get out of the car when Nancy and I dropped the Kigers off in Kilkenny later in the day when the four of us parted company. In addition to castle viewing, we also stopped at Mount Juliet to spend time with Aidan O’Hara, the superintendent who was a delightful tour guide at a marvelous facility.

What follows is some musings from the flight before my good old IBM ThinkPad told me it was about to crash with an electronic shortfall.

Currently flying along at 37,266 feet and bound for JFK. Our ground speed is 530 mph and we must be flying really hard because there is a headwind of 58 mph out there. Cold too: -47 F. I found some decent music and obviously have the travel map working while typing what might be the last Neyman addition to TurfNet Goes to Ireland 2010 Blog. I just hope the lady in front of me doesn’t decide she wants to throw her seat way back. Fingers are crossed.

When I looked in the mirror this morning I decided I need a haircut so I guess it is about time to head for home. Two weeks away from my own bed is enough. I’ll be glad to get back although this was an unbelievable trip. I’m thinking there must be some kind of magic amongst the personalities who are going on these trips because for two years worth of trips covering 11 golf courses, we only got wet on nine holes once each year. Pretty incredible weather. We might try to hire ourselves out the the Irish Chamber of Commerce or visitor’s bureau.

I’m thinking there must be some kind of magic amongst the personalities who are going on these trips because for two years worth of trips covering 11 golf courses, we only got wet on nine holes once each year…

Note to Self: Next time you travel outside of the country, make sure you take a wash cloth and a plastic bag to carry it if there’s no time to have it dry before you have to pack it. The Grand in Malahide had wash clothes in the room and that was great but I sure missed having one in most of the other overnights. I like suds I guess. Also, how come there’s no Irish Spring soap in Ireland?? I’m going to have to remember to carry that as well. It might help if I remembered my Boy Scout Motto.

After playing nothing but links golf all week there’s something I don’t quite understand. It seems to me that any golfer who has mastered all the shots needed to play these courses and become competitive should absolutely rule the entire game. How come this hasn’t happened? No question that there are some extremely good golfers who originated in these parts but by my thinking we might have never won a Ryder Cup if they played them on links courses under the conditions we saw this past week. The same logic set makes me wonder why there haven’t been more fantastic women golfers from Irish/UK courses.

Hole #3 at the Old Head of Kinsale

After all my raving about The Island Club, Royal County Down, and Portmarnock, I’m adding Old Head to the most desirable list. What a spectacular set of opening holes! I’m going to have to give Old Head the highest marks for inducing major pucker, simply because it’s a very daunting task for someone who tends to draw the ball to start the ball out over water or chasms on the left. Pretty tough to have positive thoughts when faced with this. However, when you hit a good one that rides the wind the way you intended it’s pretty rewarding. I actually saw this, eh, maybe once??

I’m going to have to give Old Head the highest marks for inducing major pucker…

My hopes of stamping out some good scores on the last course for 2010 were a little optimistic. I did manage to play better than bogey golf on the final nine holes though so that felt kind of good. I’m going home with no birdies – only came close a few times because just about every time I hit the green in regulation the look I had remaining was one that suggested a three-putt instead of a one-putt. That made me what I call the universal donor – Type O Positive – in the skins game. Not that it matters much, but I’m going home fairly light on golf balls too. The caddies the first two days were maniacal about not losing any golf balls but as the week wore on, they were very willing to walk right past a wild shot without looking for the ball.

One of the most remarkable things that happened all week was when I had a conversation early in the week with John Colo. We were just discussing some history and looking for things in common when the subject of Nancy’s and my membership at Kittanning Country Club came up. John asked if I knew Bob “Mootzy” Smouse and I told him that yes, Mootzy was a good friend. Turns out that John’s father grew up as best friends with Mootzy in a little town called Rural Valley near Kittanning. What a small world and I can’t wait to see Mootzy to tell him that I played golf with Colo’s kid.

When I get back in the office tomorrow, I am going to make sure I mark off Tuesday evening at the February GIS for the TurfNet Reunion. Hope you all do too. Right now, it’s 2100 hours EDT and my body thinks it is around 0200 or so so I’m looking forward to an early night in the rack. I am delighted to be sitting in my recliner at home and not some castle as I type this message. It was wonderful to spend a few days with all of my fellow TurfNetters and spouses on the trip and look forward to seeing you again.

All the best – Slainte’ – Nancy and Gary

I have posted a gallery of a sampling of some of the photos taken during last week’s TurfNet trip to Ireland.  Just click the Images from the trip… link on the menubar or the photo below.  We’ll post more of the attendees’ photos as they come in.

The group visited with John Gallagher, course manager at Donegal Golf Club/Murvagh in Co.Donegal prior to playing the course.  The beginning of a great day with beautiful weather.

Overheard in conversation throughout the week:

Some of the Irish brogues/dialects are admittedly difficult to understand at first, particularly when mumbled as some are inclined to do. Upon introducing himself to his caddie at Royal County Down, Jon Kiger couldn’t quite discern the young lad’s name.

(In all fairness, I did virtually the same thing last year with the assistant at Tralee. His first name was Colm (a common given name in Ireland, meaning ‘dove” in Irish, and pronounced either kolm or kollum), so I asked him how to spell it. “C-o-l-m” he replied with a bit of a quizzical stare.)

Finally, sitting around the table after our post-round lunch at Old Portmarnock, Dr. Erik Ervin (VA Tech) and Gary Neyman of LebanonTurf had the following exchange, relative to the dozen golf balls each trip attendee received from LebanonTurf:

I can’t help but interject this last little humorous anecdote in here. I was sitting on the plane headed home, and across the aisle from me was this somewhat crotchety old lady — must have been in her 90s — who was somewhat of an irritant to the flight attendants from time to time during the flight to JFK. After the captain announced our descent into the NY area, the old lady leaned across the aisle and hollered at me, “Sonny, what did he say? I’m hard of hearing…”

I haven’t been called “Sonny” in probably 50 years or so.

What’s this, a completely hassle-free day of travel? Huh?  You betcha, Dublin to JFK on Aer Lingus left on time and arrived early, JFK was almost deserted at noon on a Saturday (made me pause and wonder wth was going on), and JFK to Burlington on Jet Blue also arrived 30 minutes early… to a gorgeous late afternoon October sky at the peak of Vermont leaf season.  Not a bad way to arrive home. In fact, we commented on the drive home from the airport how much the Vermont countryside is similar to the back roads of Ireland.

Of course, this completely turned the tables on the flight over to Ireland last Saturday, as uncomfortable as it was.  I guess that’s the difference between leaving with a good night’s rest behind you or a bad one ahead.  Even the seats seemed a heckuva lot more comfortable this flight (same plane), although we were just sitting and reading/listening to an iPod rather than squirming around trying to get comfortable enough to sleep. Big difference.

All-in-all a great trip, from the camaraderie to the golf courses to the food and libations to the friendliest of hosts, the Irish people. And a special tip of the Donegal tweed cap to Willie Scales, our second-term coach driver/tour escort who has become a valued resource and a good friend in the process…”

In a way, it seemed the entire week started off miserable (I recall that driving rain at County Sligo on Monday) and gradually improved to climax with a downright balmy day at Portmarnock Golf Club on Friday.  

Our tour escort/coach driver, Willie Scales.

All-in-all a great trip, from the camaraderie to the golf courses to the food and libations to the friendliest of hosts, the Irish people. And a special tip of the Donegal tweed cap to Willie Scales, our second-term coach driver/tour escort who has become a valued resource and a good friend in the process.

The first ‘welcome home’ is always getting into my own car at the airport after a week of buses, planes and (usually, but not this time) rental cars.  But the best thing is getting into my own bed that night… which is going to happen real soon unless I can prop my eyelids open somehow enough to get partially back into this time zone.

Many more photos to come…

The official five days of TurfNet Goes To Ireland are now over and the golf has been incredible to say the least. The weather has gotten better each day and the round yesterday at Portmarnock was warm enough for short sleeves. Some, present company especially, weren’t smart enough to be prepared for weather that good. Could have even worn shorts but I would have had to buy them.

Ranking the courses would be very difficult to do IMHO but it would be a stretch to say that any course was better than Old Portmarnock or Royal County Down. Golf Digest apparently has given Old Portmarnock the nod and personally, I would not argue with that choice. I would love to play them over again while they are still fresh in my mind — I would be a lot smarter.

Right now we are on the bus headed for Kinsale (near Cork). The group is a little smaller as a few had to return to the states. The rest of us are going to play Old Head tomorrow. Before the trip I Google-mapped all of the courses to see where we would be traveling and the view of Old Head was spectacular. It looked like a little peninsula that was nothing but golf course. We’ll get to see it up close and personal tomorrow.

Today six of us added to the experience by playing The Island Club. We got there before the pro shop was open and spoke to Nigel before teeing off at first light. We played in a little over three hours, going as quickly as we could with our trollies. We had to do that because the first group of members was a twosome. We later learned that one of these two is renowned for his complaining so it’s a darned good thing that we didn’t hold him up. We saw them teeing off on the second as we were moving up the third (almost said turd there) but we put it into high gear and pulled away and didn’t see them again until the 17th after we relaxed our pace.

The course is in my top three so far, even though I’m not sure I could tell you what they are. It’s a links course for sure and it has more hills than Portmarnock but not as severe as Royal County Down. They are working hard to convert to fine fescue but they aren’t as far along as Portmarnock. I’ve personally never seen better fescue fairways than those. The greens this morning were great too — terrific greens complexes. It’s a good thing they weren’t fast because that would have made them unputtable. It was also as windy this morning as we have seen yet. Crazy thing is it’s only about a mile across the water from the Grand but it’s a 15-minute cab ride. Locals used to make the trip by boat until 1974.

This is one of the assistants, Nigel Murphy - mowing at 7:15 for a member's event. We teed off at 7:30, or "half seven". In our group, from left, that's Dr. Erik Ervin, Steven Neuliep, me, Frank Tichenor and Mark Fuller.

Jon Kiger and I will be taking the banner to Mt. Juliet on Monday morning for a signing and photo session. This is a Nicklaus parkland course that Jon and I played before the previous TurfNet Ireland tour. Not playing it Monday, however; we’re going to be tourists instead. Nancy and I will depart Monday afternoon and return to the Grand Hotel in Malahide so we can catch the Tuesday morning flight back to New York. We hope to arrive with our luggage intact in Pittsburgh late Tuesday afternoon.

Signing off for now with visions of some good golf in a spectacular setting tomorrow. Too bad “good golf” has only been wishful thinking so far, as windy links courses add about ten strokes to my handicap.

Later . . . Gary

Back in Malahide (the start of our trip) north of Dublin, the handful of us who are not continuing beyond the scheduled trip to play The Old Head of Kinsale on Sunday are headed to the airport this morning.

A smaller handful of diehards went out early this AM for a tee time at The Island Golf Club in nearby Donabate, Co.Dublin. Others who had a late night at Gibney’s pub are sleeping in (some, no doubt, suffering from AGTS — that’s Acute Guinness Toxicity Syndrome) after five days of golf before the bus leaves early afternoon for the long drive south to County Cork and Old Head.

Yesterday was a glorious day at Portmarnock Golf Club, the best day weather-wise and another well-conditioned links course. Actually, after our baptism-by-driving-rain on Monday, the weather has gotten progressively better every day. After an early morning haze burned off, temperatures at noon hovered in the mid-70s, enough to prompt some shedding of layers.

The clubhouse viewed through the fescue, gorse and heather.

Characteristic of Portmarnock Golf Club are the sod-wall pot bunkers found throughout the course.

A stiff but warm breeze came off the Irish Sea...

Course manager Gary Johnstone (featured last year in TurfNetTV Goes to Ireland) welcomed us at his spacious, 3-years-new maintenance facility for a quick tour before the group took the banner photo and headed for the first tee.

Gary Johnstone admits he was lucky to get his new maintenance facility built three years ago, before the Irish economy plunged.

Course manager Gary Johnstone (at right of banner) joined us for the banner shot at Portmarnock Golf Club.

Egged on by Fritz McMullen and Mark Fuller in particular, the Maestro made a return performance to play tee shots on the par-3 12th hole with four of the groups. To everyone’s wonder and amazement, all four shots were airborne and relatively straight, three laying up just short of the pot bunkers and the fourth — no doubt due to Fritz’s tutelage and my new confidence — sailed to the back fringe of the green.

As I’m at the Dublin airport now waiting for our flight home, hopefully someone will continue to update us on the continuation of the trip to Old Head of Kinsale. I’ll continue to post photos and more video into next week.

A visit with Enda Mulrooney, course manager at Enniscrone Golf Club.

Enniscrone Golf Club and Enda Mulrooney were also featured in our inaugural series of TurfNetTV Goes to Ireland:

Ross Collins shows us around the maintenance facility at The County Sligo Golf Club at Rosses Point.

~ ~ ~

Ross was also featured recently on TurfNetTV Goes to Ireland 2010:

The most anticipated round on TurfNet’s 2010 visit to Ireland was, of course, Royal County Down Golf Club in Newcastle, N. Ireland. Designed by Old Tom Morris and built in 1889 on the eastern coast of Northern Ireland, Royal County Down is consistently ranked among the top courses in the world (currently #1 in Great Britain and Ireland by Golfweek, and #5 internationally by Golf Magazine).

After a 3-1/2 hour bus ride from Co.Sligo this morning, the TurfNet players quickly stretched and marched right out to the first tee, where starter Alan was waving them off in 10-minute increments. A steady, surprisingly warm wind blew in off the Irish Sea and that kept up all day. The Mourne Mountains, which normally provide a backdrop to the golf course, were shrouded in a dark cloud, which also kept up all day.

The clubhouse at Royal County Down with the Mourne Mountains in the background.

Gary Neyman of LebanonTurf putts while John Burke (r) looks on.

2009 TurfNet Superintendent of the Year Anthony Williams, CGCS, tees it up on #1 at Royal County Down.

Needless to say, all players were awed (and at least slightly beat up) by the experience. I believe Frank Tichenor handed in the lowest score with an 87.

Course manager Eamonn Crawford stepped out of a meeting at the end of the day to chat with the group and sign the banner. No time for a maintenance facility tour today.

Course manager Eamonn Crawford (in black shirt above the N in the banner) joined us for a banner shot at the end of the day.