Seamus Power hasn’t had many opportunities to tee it up in an Irish Open since breaking onto the PGA Tour in late 2018, but the Waterford man who was forced to sit out the 2023 staging due to an ongoing hip injury is thrilled to be back playing in front of home crowds at Royal County Down this week.
“It’s one you plan for at the start of the year for me,” he said in his pre-tournament press conference. “I said missing last year was tough but everything, seeing familiar faces and hearing people rooting for you all day long, it’s different. I obviously play mostly in America, and you don’t see too many familiar faces and all that stuff. Having family, friends, all that kind of stuff and the history and tradition of the Irish Open on top of that, and you put in Royal County Down, it’s something you looking forward to all year long.”
Power first teed it up at Lahinch in 2019, but Covid and the travel restrictions meant that it wasn’t until Mount Juliet in 2022 that he got another chance and the hip injury that had been niggling him for some time deteriorated rapidly at the Scottish Open in 2023 and that was effectively the end of his season.
“Yeah, from last year, it was a longer journey back than I thought,” he admitted. “It was a weird injury there in that left hip. Initially, I didn’t think much of it. The Scottish Open, I had to withdraw from. Got the MRI and got the diagnosis. There was nothing massively torn so I thought that was good news. But then I came back in January after months and months of rehab and it wasn’t right at all, 12 holes I think into Maui, I was limping up the fairway.
“That was the first moment it was scary. You kind of start to wonder how far is this going to drag on for because you know it’s a pretty condensed schedule now. You may have to get started early. I was able to connect with them, one of the top hip surgeons randomly through a friend of mine, he was able to take a better look at it and put a cortisone shot on the tissue point and it’s been really good since. Probably took another four or five weeks for that to kick in fully but since then it’s been good.”
The injury put paid to Power’s Ryder Cup aspirations, but he’s hoping that a return to fitness will be accompanied by a return to the form that put him firmly on Luke Donald’s radar last year and that he can play his way onto the team heading to Bethpage in 2025.
“It’s going to be a huge goal,” he said. “Like everyone, every golfer from Europe dreams of playing in Ryder Cup, and you know it’s going to be a nasty atmosphere in New York, and it’s going to be difficult. It’s going to be one of the most difficult places for an away team in history. Maybe at the start of last year, I had a chance to be there, and then seeing all the boys play so well and celebrate — it’s going to be a huge goal again.”
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