Foley Looking Forward To Lasting Legacy From Irish Open At Lahinch

With the countdown to the 2019 Irish Open at Lahinch almost over, excitement at the North Clare course is reaching fever pitch. The Championship Village and on-site facilities are all on show, while markers on approach roads are reminding anyone who may not have already heard that the biggest golf show in the country is coming to town.

While Lahinch Golf Club is no stranger to hosting big events, this is without question the most prestigious tournament to ever be played over the famous links. It will be an event that will live in the memory long after the grandstands have been dismantled and ,will leave a legacy for future generations.

It will also leave lasting memories for those who are at the coalface of the club on a day-to-day basis and 2019 will always be the year that Eamon Foley was men’s captain at Lahinch Golf Club when the Irish Open rolled into town.

The Cork native has had a long association with the club and served as vice-captain and council chairperson prior to his appointment as captain. He said the support from club members, in particular, has been hugely positive ahead of the event.

“One aspect we were wary of was the members being discommoded in the lead up to the event. The course will be closed in the lead up to the event and mats were in operation for a little longer than they would normally be but no-one has said a word. The support we got from members has been incredible and everyone is putting their hands up to be volunteers and marshals. Everyone is excited about it and everyone sees this as a real opportunity to showcase Lahinch Golf Club and have some fun.

“We set out to say that apart from the course being as good as we could get it and having the best golfing event we possibly could, we wanted to make sure that the members would enjoy it because if they didn’t, we felt it would be failure. The Tour might think it would be a success but we wanted to ensure that our members were involved and not pushed aside,” he said.

Foley moved to Ennis when he worked with Aer Rianta International as finance director, before going on to become the chief executive in 1998. He served in that role until 2011, which took him all over the globe, including the Middle East, China and USA.

He admits such a hectic schedule meant he was something of a latecomer to the sport.

“I had no interest in golf when I came here first. I played squash and I swam and it was my wife who was the golfer. We lived in Portugal for four years on a beautiful golf course but I was always just too busy to play. My wife decided one day that we should buy a mobile home in Lahinch and that was the start of my journey, when I began to play golf at the age of 41.

“In 2005, we built a house here because we just fell in love with the place and I loved coming here in the summer. We wanted to spend more time here and a mobile home was not ideal in the depths of winter and we now live here full-time from May to September and we just love the place,” he smiled.

It was not long before his expertise was being put to good use at Lahinch Golf Club, as he was asked to be chairperson of the council at the club in 2013. He said it was a time that signalled changes in how club affairs were structured.

He said, “The club constitution was amended around that time, as previously the captain of the day would also chair the council. It meant that every year you had a new chairperson and from a business point of view, it made no sense whatsoever. The constitution was changed to have a chairperson appointed on a three-year term and I was the first under the regime. That got me involved in the admin side of it and I really enjoyed it.

“From the business point of view, we did a strategic plan that set the mission values of what we wanted Lahinch to be. We spoke to various people to see what did they see as being at the heart of the club and that was a fascinating experience and I really enjoyed it. We tried to capture a lot of the heart of Lahinch and get people behind it. We have a really good general manager in Paddy Keane, who set about delivering what we had set out and he has been outstanding for Lahinch Golf Club and has a fantastic team around him too.”

Like all good leaders, Foley is quick to deflect praise and while he admits it is a great honour for him to be captain in the year that Lahinch hosts the Irish Open, he said everyone in the club has their shoulder to the wheel for the effort.

“It is an incredible honour because traditionally captains of golf clubs are people who started playing golf when they were young and represented the club in competitions and got down to single figures but here is me playing off of a handicap of 19. I guess the reason I was asked to be captain was because I put the three years in as chairperson, so maybe it was in recognition of that. When the previous captain Kevin O’Keeffe asked me to be the vice-captain, we had no inkling that the Irish Open was on the cards. We knew we would have the Home Internationals in September, which is a big deal for Lahinch anyway with the top amateurs coming here, but the news about the Open came out of the blue.

“It is a great year to be captain and while it is busy, the whole team are happy to have it that way. Paddy and his team are double-jobbing. The green keepers are working so hard to have the course in the best possible shape, the office staff are working round the clock and there is an amount of stuff that has to be done on top of the day job, so everyone is really putting in a huge effort. The team in the bar and restaurant will have all the extra catering to take care of in the pavilion, so it is a huge undertaking. The European Tour look after a lot of stuff but we need to make sure that the members and volunteers are looked after. There will be around 800 volunteers in total, so we have to coordinate that every day,” he noted.

While all the work at the moment is focused on the next few weeks, hopes are high that a lasting legacy can be left for Lahinch to build on what will be a momentous occasion. Foley is confident that the local resources available can be developed to sustain and improve the entire Lahinch product for years to come.

“A lot of our American visitors will ask what our world ranking is or what famous people have played here and what tournaments we have hosted. To be able to say we hosted the Irish Open and there will be photos all around the place of all the instantly recognisable faces, that will raise our profile and standing because our course will have been good enough to host the Irish Open. The exposure we will get through the media will be fantastic with the various outlets, who will not just be here on course but also around the village to sample all that is going on with the festival atmosphere that is going to be around. That is the one event for a week and it will stick in people’s minds but I would really love to see Lahinch as an area wake up to the tourism potential that is still untapped.

“Clare County Council are putting in a huge effort to dress up the town with new painting, flowerpots, car parks and all that. We have the lahinch.ie domain and that is up and running, which is really important. It is important now that the work to tidy up the town and surrounds is maintained to continue pushing Lahinch as a product and that will lead to more jobs and more investment to continue developing the area. There is so much more potential here for Lahinch as a destination. There is a big opportunity now and we can all see the long-term benefits of investing in the village,” he concluded.