With over 220,000 members and 377 affiliated golf clubs on the island, Irish golf owes so much to the outstanding volunteers devoting their time every week.
Golf Ireland support and train approximately 1,600 golf club volunteers annually, the volunteers who in turn help clubs like Grange Golf Club to become one of the premier destinations on the outskirts of Dublin City.
The club has really bought into the process too and they have been recognised for their endeavours by having two nominees in the upcoming Golf Ireland Club Volunteer of the Year Awards.
Helen Buckley is up for the Disability and Inclusion award alongside Edel Randles (Castlegregory) and Kevin Farrell (Edenderry). With Gordon Murray on the shortlist for the Sustainability award, where the Sustainability Working Group (County Louth) and Neil Cremin (Ennis) are his challengers.
Ger Ryan is the former Honorary Secretary and Captain of the Women’s Club at Grange, and she is also steeped in the wonderful culture of volunteering there.
She joined Grange 20 years ago when her daughter linked in with their juvenile section. At the time she almost felt obliged to volunteer there but witnessing some of the great efforts within the club has helped to fuel her fire.
“For example, a member was involved in the Special Olympics way back in the day, he introduced it to Grange for golf and we aligned ourselves with Cheeverstown House,” said Ryan.
“They look after people with disabilities and it would be quite near so the people could come easily on a bus to Grange, and he asked me and a few of my friends would we start it with them and we did. That has been amazing.
“It has been a huge addition to Grange and we have a member of our ground staff who is a very, very good golfer and he would have special needs. When you can see people being included in regular employment and that we facilitate that, they would be the things for me where volunteering really, really opened up another aspect of humanity.”
Niall Barry is Vice-Captain of Grange Golf Club and he joined the junior ranks there almost six decades ago.
“It is a brilliant facility to have very close by and it does an awful lot for you,” said Barry.
“There are times when you can volunteer and times when you can’t so it just happened to be a time when I could volunteer, and Ger was on a committee and she got stuck with the job after me.
“We have been minding the club for the last few years but it’s like any other club, it only exists because people volunteer to do everything, so even though we have a number of paid staff nothing would happen up there unless you had various groups and the key to an awful lot of that is that the groups know there is a need.
“There is a good spirit in Grange, there is a good community there and people are predisposed to doing something to help and that is particularly important.”
Barry ended up retiring ten years ago and that was his opportunity to devote more of his time to volunteering at the local golf club.
Despite being one of Dublin’s most popular parklands, the 24-hole behemoth still taps into the local community and inspires a great camaraderie throughout its membership.
“In the ladies club we had an unwritten policy over the last number of years to try and get the more recently joined members to go on the ladies committee,” said Ryan.
“To a person they will tell you it is the best thing that ever happened, now they really feel part of a club. It can be quite daunting at the beginning if you go in cold to try and fit in and find your tribe within the tribe.
“The club has to be open too, it’s not just the same old same old because it used to work, it’s like everything else it has to evolve, and Grange and the volunteering aspect of it has evolved.”
Grange have placed a big focus behind inclusion and sustainability, as evidenced by their nominees for the awards at the National AGM.
“Some of the efforts have really been to anticipate what is happening generally throughout the EU,” said Barry.
“We set up a sustainability group but also we went looking for GEO Certification to be a green club and we achieved that four years ago.
“Again, it is back to communication, if people in the club know what you are trying to achieve and know you have a need for expertise you will find volunteers.
“It’s communicating the opportunities to people and there are loads of opportunities, let’s face it no golf club would work without volunteers.
“You won’t have teams, you won’t have bridge or snooker or any of those things or a vibrant junior club unless there are people willing to give up the time to do it.”
Last year, Mary Farrell (Edenderry) won the Golf Ireland Club Volunteer of the Year award at the 2024 AGM.
There are 17 nominees put forward for the revamped Golf Ireland Club Volunteer of the Year Awards at the National AGM this time around.
“You should award people who go over and above definitely, and to get the regional and hopefully national recognition for any aspect of the club is wonderful,” said Ryan.
“It’s very hard to get because there are so many clubs on the island but it just highlights to our club that we should be acknowledging our volunteers because it wouldn’t work without them.”
The other categories down for decision on 29 March are Excellence in Service, Junior Development and LevelPar.
And for a club with such a rich history, that dates back to 1909, with over a century of golfing excellence much can be attributed to their wonderful volunteers.
“It is important to remember that volunteers are ordinary people, but it is ordinary people who are doing these extraordinary things that keep the club going,” said Barry.
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