Golf is a sport that can never be mastered but becoming a PGA Professional just a thousand days after picking up a club for the first time is a pretty good effort at it.
Ronan McNally’s love affair with golf is not an unusual one, taking up the game in his late teens to play with his friends. But just how good he would become is something not even he could have foreseen.
Back in 2023, aged 19 at the time, McNally decided he would tag along with his friends and hit some golf balls at the Joe The Pro Golf Academy in Fordstown, Meath. Little did he know that it was an hour that would change his life. It was love at first sight.
“Every single day I played, joined Headfort then as a ranger that’s how I got to play so much golf and now I am doing my training there so it’s a full circle moment,” said McNally who had initially been studying a PLC Course for Physical Education. “That was never made for me. If I never went I wouldn’t be doing this. I went one day for an hour and it has changed my life.”
McNally’s handicap began at 28 and he was keen to cut into that as soon as possible. He quickly got down to fourteen and then another huge cutting season came the following year when he saw his handicap plummet to 4.
It was then he thought that a career in the golf industry might be for him and he decided to pursue a career as a PGA Professional last year. Now an assistant professional at Joe The Pro Academy where his golfing journey began, McNally has a hectic coaching schedule.
“I didn’t really know about the PGA. I just presumed that a professional golfer was like a tour pro on the TV but I never would have thought that I would be giving people lessons. I would like to think that I know as much as everyone else who is doing lessons, I do a lot of junior coaching.
“I don’t really know what section I want to go into just yet. I will coach for a few years and maybe try the management side of things.”
After an albeit brief yet successful junior career which included victory in a two-day Irish Junior Tour event in The Heritage during the summer which gave him a European Golf Ranking and more importantly a huge confidence boost that this was the game for him, he began his PGA training.
McNally played a couple of pro events last year but he has burning ambitions to play on the PGA in Ireland region on a regular basis.
“I have played two or three of the events already. I want to play full time in the future. I don’t want to be someone who doesn’t compete. I like to compete at a better level. My first three years have seen me just trying to improve my game. There’s such a big difference between some of the lads on the region. I was playing with Damien McGrane the other day and I started the PGA off four and he came off the tour and did it.
“I want to get my game better and I want to compete and be on the order of merit every year.”
Despite his rapid progress in the game, doubts whether this was the career path for him have never been far from McNally’s mind. Even when his handicap was flying down or when he was giving lessons or playing, he often gets taken aback by how far he has come in such a short amount of time.
“It just clicked one day with me. I go through periods where I don’t play good golf. There was a setback when I got down below 10 handicap because you aren’t winning nett competitions and you’re not winning the gross so there is that doubt.
“Even now I think should I be doing this with only three years experience? But fortunately there haven’t been any major setbacks that have made me think I shouldn’t be doing this at all.”
Being a PGA Professional really has become a labour of love and seeing coaching clients improve gives him the buzz to get out of bed in the morning and it has made him grateful for tagging along for that one hour to the driving range three years ago.
“It is great fun. At any age of lessons I love telling someone something and it fixes it straight away. It’s probably the best feeling in the world of doing a job, just to see the joy on their faces, they think you are a hero!
“You need patience, which I don’t have but getting better.”
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