Irish golf fans have been spoiled over the last 20 years. At the men’s professional level, we have had major winners, Ryder Cup heroes, Ryder Cup captains, and world number one golfers. Even European golf’s one and only grand slam winner hails from these shores.
Pádraig Harrington broke the mould with his Open Championship win at Carnoustie in 2007, the first of his three major titles. After him came Graeme McDowell, Rory McIlroy, Darren Clarke, and Shane Lowry’s home triumph in Portrush before McIlroy became immortal at Augusta National last month.
Of the 17 Irishmen who have teed it up for Great Britain and Ireland in the Walker Cup, only one has won on the DP World Tour—Paul Dunne. None of the 17 have broken through to the top level, with Conor Purcell being Ireland’s only DP World Tour regular.
But below him is a crop of Irish youngsters scrapping valiantly to make the breakthrough. Mark Power, Max Kennedy, and Liam Nolan have all enjoyed fruitful weeks on the HotelPlanner Tour this season as they strive towards the DP World Tour.
Nolan has been particularly impressive, and after a hot start where he finished third and fourth in back-to-back invites in South Africa, he finds himself perched inside the top 10 on the Road to Mallorca, with the top 20 earning DP World Tour cards in November.
“I’m very happy with how it has gone. It’s not that I wasn’t expecting it but when you are playing off invites it is hard to know how it is going to go,” Nolan said at the Golf Ireland season launch.
“I’m glad to see that the practice and the hard work has paid off and hopefully I can capitalise on it before the end of the season.”
Nolan came of age in 2023, winning twice at amateur level before making the GB&I Walker Cup team in St Andrews. Last year saw him qualify for the Open Championship, and after serving his apprenticeship as an amateur, he joined the professional ranks and is determined to keep moving forward.
“You can get caught up in these order of merits and all of these rankings and stuff like that but at the end of the day if you strip it back you are just trying to go play in golf tournaments, compete and win so when it comes down to it that’s what it will always be about for me and that is the approach I will take between now and the end of the season,” he added.
On his first start of the campaign, the Galway man went on a sensational run with a final round of 67 to miss out on a playoff by a shot at the SDC Open.
A win could have secured a DP World Tour card, but there was no time for disappointment for Nolan, who was really encouraged by how he handled himself under the pressure cooker of trying to win.
“It’s unbelievable. I was surprisingly calm and really lucky that I had a very good friend on the bag down there and I still do. Someone who knows you really well and knows your game really well and especially in the first week when I missed the playoff by a shot, just to be in the position to be in position and execute shots coming down the stretch is just a class feeling.”
It’s been a couple of months of touring and rooming with his former Irish international teammate Max Kennedy of Royal Dublin. Kennedy earned a full HotelPlanner Tour card last year at Q-School, where he came within a whisker of winning a full DP World Tour card.
Both players look like they have the potential to have long careers in professional golf, and Nolan believes the pair can help each other improve and strive towards the DP World Tour and hopefully beyond in the coming years.
“I would be very close with Max and we go to a lot of tournaments together,” explained Nolan. “He’s a great asset to have, we’re both good for each other, we both want to win, we are both quite upbeat after good and bad golf so it’s good to feed off each other and make each other better.
“That is the goal for the rest of the season with Max there as well, we would be delighted for us both to progress on to the DP World Tour next year.”
Such aspirations mean that the pair will more than likely become rivals at some point, but it’s a scenario they are used to from their amateur days, particularly when Nolan pipped Kennedy to the post at the South American Amateur in Ecuador.
“We’ve done it before, in Ecuador we were both in contention, in Open qualifying we were both in contention, at European Amateur we roomed together and were both in contention. We are good mates and if one of us doesn’t win, we want the other one to win and it’s good to have someone like that.”
The sky is the limit this season for Nolan, who has turned a limited number of invites into what is essentially full status on the HotelPlanner Tour, although he hopes to rubber-stamp his place in all of the big events after the mid-season re-rank next month.
“Because of how I played at the start of the year and the points I have accumulated I have been able to pile my invites and play for the re-rank after the Swiss event and also I am entitled to unlimited invites based on my points now,” said Nolan, who is relieved to be able to plan his schedule as a reward for his good start to the season.
“There is a lot of pressure off planning my invites and what time I should get them. Hopefully I will get the full season to plan the weeks as I want.
“That’s the main thing you want to be able to plan your schedule and prepare for each tournament with enough time so being able to do that now is great.”
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