The year was 1994 and a younger Raymie Burns became the first Irishman to win the Challenge Tour Order of Merit. If you had told him that thirty years later his achievement would still stand alone he wouldn’t have believed you.
Conor Purcell has given himself a chance of ending a three decade long hoodoo for Irish golfers on Europe’s second tier ahead of the Road to Mallorca Grand Final in two weeks’ time.
Purcell’s second Challenge Tour win of the season propelled him from 12th to 4th in the season long Road to Mallorca Rankings and his attentions will dramatically change from looking to secure his DP World Tour card to rubber-stamping his promotion in style by winning the Grand Final at Club de Golf Alcanada and the Road to Mallorca.
The Portmarnock man will be joined in Alcanada by Dermot McElroy and Gary Hurley after they also remained inside the all important top-45 after the final regular season event in China.
This will be the largest Irish participation at the Grand Final since 2022 where Tom McKibbin earned promotion while John Murphy also competed that week.
While Purcell is currently due to join McKibbin on the DP World Tour next year he could instead be replacing the Holywood man as the only regular Irish participant if McKibbin earns a PGA TOUR card next month.
McKibbin is also the last person to win promotion to the DP World Tour via the Challenge Tour since Cormac Sharvin in 2019 so success stories on the Challenge Tour have been slim pickings for Irish men’s golf in recent years.
While Purcell will be on the attack at the Grand Final, a cohort of Irish players will be looking to keep their dreams alive of joining him on the DP World Tour as they enter the lions den of Qualifying School in Spain.
But the underlying numbers don’t necessarily give reason for plenty of optimism.
Of the 31 Irish players who paid their €3,280 entry fee for the First Stage of DP World Tour Q-School, just nine advanced to the Second Stage with five edging it on the number.
Niall Kearney, Paul McBride, Mark Power, Cormac Sharvin and Liam Nolan, Rowan Lester and Ronan Mullarney will be joined by amateurs Max Kennedy and David Kitt while a scattering of Irish players who were exempt from the First Stage will be looking to beat the meat grind.
Golf is a harsh numbers game and the squeeze is even tighter given that the DP World Tour has become a global enterprise with the availability of tour cards at a constant premium.
To even expect that a third of the Irish players will progress to the gruelling marathon of the six round Final Stage is asking a lot.
If you think back to 1997, Pádraig Harrington was often one of ten Irishmen in a European Tour field, and for reference, there have been tournaments this year where Ireland has had no participants.
Last season, Ireland had six players at the Final Stage of DP World Tour Q-School; none were successful, and just one player (Purcell) made the Grand Final on the Challenge Tour and only three finished inside the top-70 to maintain full status on Europe’s second tier.
Since 2014, €16.8 million in grants have been given to Golf Ireland for a wide array of projects which included high performance & professional pathways, juniors, growing the game for women, golf club development and support & resilience funding. In this period, sixteen Walker Cup players have come through national panels, none of whom currently hold full DP World Tour status.
Q-School is a torture fest where dreams are made and agonisingly dashed in a matter of moments. But as questions about the direction Irish men’s professional golf is heading have been asked over the last few years, it won’t be long before we find out whether it will be another winter of asking why Ireland are falling short in Europe.
McKibbin began the 2024 season as Ireland’s only full DP World Tour card holder this season under the age of 35 and Stuart Grehan’s retirement from professional golf a fortnight ago aged just 31 is a reminder of a lost generation of Irish men’s golf.
Raymie Burns enjoyed four solid years on the European Tour before bowing out earlier than he would have hoped to focus on his PGA qualifications but it certainly wasn’t for the lack of practicing.
“I practiced and practiced and practiced. I just kept practicing, I was obsessed. I do find the amount of guys did years ago was an awful lot more than what I see some of the kids do now. The main reason maybe for that is we didn’t have the internet, iPhones, Netflix and all these different things,” he said.”
In some bittersweet news, Purcell has risen to a career high 262nd in the Official World Golf Ranking as of Monday morning, becoming the first new player from Ireland to break into the top-300 in eight years.
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