Having walked the fairways with Ludvig Åberg during his college days in America, Connemara’s Luke O’Neill is taking inspiration from the Swedish sensation as he looks to forge his own path in the game and come of age this year.
O’Neill is looking forward to playing his first proper Irish championship season after four years in college at Kansas State as well as taking in some of the big tournaments abroad and he has already made a splash on the continent with a run to the semi-finals of the Spanish Amateur Championship last month.
“It was a good week overall with a lot of positives to take. It was really nice to have the team there as well with Brian Doran and Paul Coughlan. We played San Roque the first two days which was a real treat so we started the week off on a nice high,” explains O’Neill who is back working in the pro shop at his home club in Connemara.
“Then we played the practice round at the Spanish AM, I liked it because it was tricky and involved a lot of thinking which is what I am comfortable with and from there I stuck to a good process for the week. Never play matchplay against the man, just play stroke play and play my own game and then I saw what happened.”
O’Neill has been a regular in the matchplay stages of Irish championships over the years having progressed from the stroke play but he had found the knockout element of golf difficult. Maybe due to the emphasis on stroke play in collegiate tournaments.
But he flicked the switch over the winter and a change in mindset paid dividends as he came through some tight matches with his last-16 and quarter final ties going to the 17th and 18th.
“I wouldn’t have a very good matchplay record, I didn’t like matchplay very much so I had to change my approach, starting with the South of Ireland last year. Always decent in the stroke play but just couldn’t get by those first few matches. So I just focused on playing stroke play in the matches and forgot about what my opponent was doing and just focused on my own game. Before that the round could be over before I even knew it sometimes.
“Sometimes you can get influenced if he hits a bad drive and you think he will be in trouble and then he’s not but you’ve laid back and all of a sudden you’re at a disadvantage. You should just play your normal stroke play shot it’s just another golf shot.
“I was only down once ever before the semi-final and I birdied the last two in the round of 16 to get in and that was just about hitting every shot as well as I could to give myself a chance. I wasn’t thinking about my opponent, he had a six footer and I hit it to 25-feet and held it and he had a chance to bring it down 19 but he missed so that was a nice break.”
Unfortunately for O’Neill he ran into a French juggernaut in Hugo LeGoff who destroyed all in his wake.
Despite being three-under for the 14 holes in a 5&4 defeat, O’Neill was blitzed early on by the Frenchman who was eight-under after just seven holes.
“In the semi final I played lovely. He was eight under through seven which wasn’t great for me! I just had to hang in there and play my own game, I was three under through 14 and lost 5&4 but that’s matchplay at the end of the day. He just played great golf and he continued that into the final, you never mind losing to great golf.”
The 23-year-old has been named on the Golf Ireland Men’s High Performance panel for the third successive year. But having spent the early part of the season in the United States for the last two years he is excited to finally reap the benefits of being part of the panel and felt he could take his game to the next level by playing more or less full time tournament golf.
“It’s different because I was in college the first two years of it so I never really got the full taste of it after Boys golf. When you are in college you can’t play all the big abroad events, you are always involved in the college team then back into the Irish championships,” says O’Neill who has been selected as part of the Irish quartet to defend their European Nations Team Championship title later this month.
“I’m really looking forward to playing a much more individual schedule and more events. It’s nice to break away from the team stuff in America and with fewer team events with Ireland I will enjoy it more.
“It’s great for Irish golf to see players coming through each year for such a small nation I don’t know how we do it. We have so many sports in Ireland it’s mad to see that golf is still up there.
“I can’t wait to reap the benefits of being on the High Performance Panel, playing at some historic venues like Lytham which hosted the Amateur in 2022. Brabazon and other events so it should be great and it will feel like being on tour because I will be preparing individually so I am really looking forward to the year.”
Golf has always been a part of O’Neill’s family. His father Hughie is a golf professional and a greenkeeper but it was through his grandfather where he caught the golfing bug.
His grandfather would whizz O’Neill around Connemara Golf Links in a buggy and after being reluctant to take to the ball and stick game, he finally fell in love when he turned eleven and he was fully focused on golf by the time he was in his leaving cert year.
A scholarship at Kansas State University was his plan. He was already a highly-coveted talent before moving Stateside after winning the prestigious Allianz German Boys Open in 2019.
During his four years in Kansas, O’Neill won a collegiate event and was ranked fourth in school history in scoring average at 72.74. He also tied for ninth with 11 top-10 finishes.
“The American system is quite blunt it’s about what you shoot not how you shoot it,” he explains. “The coach comes to you at the end of the round and you just hand him the card and doesn’t ask for a story behind it. I realised very quickly that team golf is about getting the ball in the hole.
“It was a good time to go over it was during Covid so there was no golf going on in Ireland so I got to play tournaments during that time.
“The four years were a great experience to play near full time tournament golf. I played with Ludvig Åberg and guys who are on tour now. It’s a great breeding ground for the younger players. It’s not all positive, the lifestyle is intense and might not suit other players.
“The competition level, there is nothing like it for an aspiring professional.”
Speaking of aspiring professionals, O’Neill is taking huge inspiration from his former Irish teammate Max Kennedy and a certain Ludvig Åberg as he looks to take the next step in the game.
“Ludvig was unreal. I played with him when I was 16 and he was good then, but he was one of those players who got better and better and he just became a robot. He’s a really nice guy which is great, it was great to walk around and talk to him and watch him shoot 66 at his ease just striping it around.
“It shows that you can take a lot from their game and how simple they do it, hit fairways, nothing silly around the greens and unbelievable pace putting. They make the simple things look really easy they do it so well.”
Winning is the aim for O’Neill who hasn’t tasted victory since winning the Mullingar Scratch Cup by four shots in 2023. But since it will be his first proper full season playing men’s championships, including a first appearance at the West of Ireland since 2019, he knows he must continue to improve first and let the results follow.
“I have some end goals for the year. For me it’s one event at a time and see can I get one percent better everyday and with that you will contend for championships just by moving up leaderboards and getting better. I find it hard when I focus on results.
“The aim is to win but you can’t win on the first day you just have to keep progressing every day.
“My iron play and chipping is always very good. So try and make those better and hopefully hit one more fairway per round and hole one more putt per round. It’s about strokes gained when you put them in at the end of the round and finding those small margins of gains, it’s not about setting a goal on improving something by September because it’s only March so it’s about gradual improvement.”
For now, O’Neill will be taking stock of his game for the next few years before deciding to enter the professional ranks or make money elsewhere. DP World Tour qualifying school beckons in September but there is no doubting his talent whatever happens.
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