Ireland’s pipeline of talented golfers is nurtured both domestically and abroad. The Paddy Harrington Scholar programme at Maynooth University provides a homegrown pathway, but many top prospects choose the US college system instead.
And it’s a growing trend according to Maynooth’s Barry Fennelly, golf programme manager at Maynooth University.
“There’s definitely been a recent shift, and boys and girls seem to be committing a lot younger,” Fennelly explains. “Take the Irish Boys and Girls teams of the last few years – 80, 90 percent of them are all going to America.”
But, despite trends skewing in favour of the United States, there are pros and cons to both approaches.
THE US COLLEGE GOLF EXPERIENCE: A high stakes proving ground
In 2022, 28 Irish golfers competed in Division One college golf, per the NCAA. This system has shaped stars like Lauren Walsh, Áine Donegan, Max Kennedy, and Sara Byrne, and four years of intense Division One competition can forge a player ready to step into the professional ranks.
Of the 10 players in the Golf Ireland Professional Scheme, six have US college golf experience. Playing at this level offers significant opportunities but also challenges, including heightened intensity, long-distance travel, and demanding schedules far from home. It’s not for everyone.
Áine Donegan, in her final year at Louisianna State, has thrived at the Baton Rouge campus, an hour west of New Orleans.
“I think if I hadn’t gone to LSU, I wouldn’t have gone to the U.S. Open (2023) and all these opportunities wouldn’t have opened up for me,” she reflects. “We get to travel to very nice places and sometimes, in very good style.”
According to its statement of assets, LSU spent $911,505 (€803,255) on its women’s golf programme in 2022, so playing there has its perks.
“If you’re offered a full scholarship, I think that’s very difficult to turn down,” she adds. “You may as well go and try it for a year and if you don’t like it, come home. That’s why I decided to do it.”
Max Kennedy, currently on Europe’s HotelPlanner Tour, fine-tuned his game over four years at Kentucky’s University of Louisville.
“Playing college golf in the U.S. is probably one of the best routes to turning professional,” he argues. “If you’re at a high enough standard over here, you kind of know where you stand in the grand scheme of things. As in you know if you can make it or not.”
Louisville equipped Kennedy with all the tools he would need to turn professional, including access to the best technology and practise facilities to help him improve daily.
“Everything is at our disposal; it’s just about working hard enough to get better. All the work you put in will build towards you getting better as a player, it’s just about using those facilities to make you better.”
The change in lifestyle was an adjustment for the Royal Dublin man. It took him a few months to settle in.
“The American lifestyle is very fast paced, especially being on a team. Our coaches demand a lot from us, and we obviously demand a lot from them. There’s not a lot of down time over there,” Kennedy said.
But the vast opportunities come at a price; adapting to the grind of a demanding practise and study schedule can be challenging.
Now a professional on the LET, Lauren Walsh made the most of her time at Wake Forest in North Carolina. She left with a National Championship ring on her finger and the foundations of a prolific amateur career to build upon.
Walsh embraced the tough environment of college golf; scaling its highest peak, she made a putt to win the National Championship for Wake in 2023.
As a mathematical business major, she juggled academic demands while travelling the length and breadth of the States to compete, often up past midnight to study after practise.
“Sometimes you felt like there wasn’t enough hours in the day,” Walsh said. “Somehow we always managed to get it done, with that came a lot of stress.”
While Wake Forest handed Walsh the keys to unlock her potential, there were also times when she missed the comforts of home.
“Overall, it was definitely a positive experience. In saying that, I definitely felt homesick at times. Culturally it’s so different, and at times I just wanted a home cooked meal with my family. All these great facilities, technology and people you know, it really does help. At the same time there is nothing like being at home.”
Walsh is accompanied on tour by Sara Byrne, who had a remarkable 19 offers from American universities when she finished secondary school in Cork. Spoilt for choice, she weighed up her options and was eventually drawn to the year-round sun at the University of Miami. “If you want to succeed and become a pro, it’s the best place for it. By the time I was 13 or 14, I knew that’s what I wanted to do, and I managed to do it,” Byrne said.
The two-time national women’s amateur champion improved steadily over the four years under the strict diet of golf, golf, and more golf. Like Walsh, Byrne felt the US college route would give her the most likely path to professional golf.
“I’ve played golf my whole life and becoming a professional golfer was always the goal. College golf in the US is the best amateur circuit for preparing to turn pro. Obviously Leona Maguire had done it, Olivia Mehaffey had done it, so success was coming out of it,” she explained.
(Maguire spent 135 consecutive weeks atop the world amateur rankings at Duke University, and Mehaffey won an NCAA title at Arizona State.)
Byrne’s talent blossomed in Miami’s programme, but she reckons that the level of hard work required to make it in the US surpasses everyone’s expectations at first.
“Everyone thinks, especially coming to a place like Miami, that you’re going to go and have the great life, out partying all the time and meeting all these cool people, going to the beach.”
“In division one, if you’re not playing well, it’s just so hard. Your coaches are so hard on you, you’ll get left behind, and you won’t be on the starting team that travels.
“A lot of people have come over here and can’t manage it, and I think that can be very hard. If they don’t have the determination to be a high performing athlete over here, it can be very hard to manage it all and manage the pressure of it.”
MAYNOOTH UNIVERSITY: A holistic homegrown alternative
The Paddy Harrington Golf Scholarship Programme at Maynooth University offers a more holistic approach to college golf. Barry Fennelly is conscious of the appeal of the US, but his approach has built Maynooth into Ireland’s premier golf factory. It’s person before player for Fennelly and his team.
“Student first, athlete second, isn’t that it? It’s ‘student-athlete’ at the end of the day. The big challenge that I have annually with our programme is that the players are, first of all, coming to university to get a college education, and they choose individual degrees, which is totally the way to do it,” Fennelly explains.
“We put a big emphasis on developing the players as individuals, holistically. We do a lot of coaching and development work with them, from golf coaching, sports psychology, strength and conditioning, nutrition, planning, performance profiling, a lot of stuff goes into trying to help the players get better.
“I rely massively on my support and coaching team in Maynooth to really help with that. That’s our model. I think that’s the big difference for players looking in is that there’s a big emphasis on coaching and developing the player in Maynooth versus the US.”
The recent growth of the R&A Student Tour series, which has five events across Europe, including a finale on the Old Course at St Andrews, has been positive for European college golf. Maynooth’s offering also includes tournaments such as the King Hamad Trophy in Bahrain and intercollegiates with US colleges, such as the Lyons Links Invitational. They, too, have access to top-class facilities at Carton House. Maynooth has been represented at nine of the last 11 Arnold Palmer Cups; no other institution outside the US has matched this.
“The big emphasis in America is on the team and the team always comes first,” Fennelly adds. “Only five players are on the team – it’s all about the team doing well – and that team environment does create some really excellent competition… There’s not as much emphasis, it seems, on coaching and development of players, especially when you know you’re not performing. Our programme in Maynooth is much more about the individual.”
A former Paddy Harrington scholar himself, Fennelly welcomes new competitions being added to the Irish college calendar, such as the Student Sport Ireland matchplay competition in Bunclody this year.
However, he’s conscious of the fact that it’s an uphill battle.
“I think it’s a hard sell,” Fennelly admits, “even with the tour series and European student golf getting much stronger… I think the way America is going with the financial side and the NIL (Name, Image & Likeness) money side of it. There’s a lot of funding now that seems to be available to players where it may not have been before. That seems to be giving more Irish players opportunities.”
Fennelly stresses the importance of finding the right fit for each individual golfer.
“I get it. The allure of America,” he said. “The good weather and playing a lot of golf is always there, but it’s not for everybody. “I will be the first person to wish someone good luck and hope it works out for them. But you’ve got to do your homework on that too, making sure that that model and that environment is the right one for you.”
Ryan Griffin could be described as a poster boy for the Paddy Harrington Scholarship. The Donegal man is an example of how the programme can be transformative for those who decide to stay in Ireland and pursue the sport on the European college circuit. He is eyeing up professional opportunities as he finishes his master’s in environmental psychology.
“For a European golfer that chooses to stay and play golf in Europe… I personally love it because we’ve seen it at the Lyons Links. The guys from over there are like, ‘Are Irish guys any good?’ Then end up in a playoff to win the event. So yeah, we are pretty good mate! You do kind of go under the radar, especially when you play in big events like the Palmer Cup.”
Griffin enjoys the label of underdog, even though he’s played in two Palmer Cups and won the 2023 and 2024 R&A Student Tour Series order of merits, the latter alongside fellow Maynooth golfer Kate Lanigan.
“When you know you are expected to lose, it gives you that bit of extra fire to go prove yourself, which is where I found myself when I went out to Maynooth at first – nobody knew who I was. Nobody knew anything about me, thinking, ‘Is this guy any good?’ So, it does give me that bit of extra incentive to put in the work and perform as best you can,” he added.
Griffin highly recommends Maynooth as an Irish option for aspiring golfers.
“The opportunities that can be offered to you, especially now with our connections to Callaway and relationships with all the different coaches, it’s phenomenal. So, there’s very little downside with it, because a lot of people, they see America, and they’re kind of sold the dream. They think they’re going to go over and in a couple of years they’ll be PGA Tour players, which sometimes is the case, but it isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be.
“So, it’s just figuring out what would be best for you… it’s really dependent on the person, as well as their golf game.”
The 25-year-old is planning to play as much amateur golf as possible over the next few months and try to obtain a tour card. For now, he’s glad he has trailed his own path, the one that was right for him at Maynooth. And that seems like a good lead to follow for young golfers making big decisions.
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