Richard Kilpatrick is enjoying his most successful year to date – in terms of victories – but he admits that his chances of claiming a second Elavon Order of Merit title as the leading earner on the PGA in Ireland Region aren’t realistic.
The Banbridge man’s victory at the Synergy Golf Pro-Am at St Margarets over the weekend was his sixth win in 28 starts – close to a one-in-four record – and further cemented his place at number two in the rankings, and it was a slightly unusual win in some ways.
“Yeah, it was sort of a weird one,” he admitted. “I usually spend an hour or an hour and 20 minutes relaxing after work, but I got down to St Margarets late and only had about 35 minutes before my tee time.
“I just had time to get ready, hit a few balls and head to the first tee and then all of a sudden I found myself five-under through 12 holes.
“I know the wind was up, but you usually need to shoot six-, seven-, maybe eight-under in that Pro-Am to have a chance because someone always goes low, but I looked at the leaderboard and the nearest score to me was Adam Dunmore at three-under.
“The closing stretch there can be really tricky with the wind the way it was, but there’s a couple of par-5s as well. Then i made a double on 14 – it was a tough hole into the wind and I hit a decent tee shot that just drifted and I ended up behind a tree hitting sideways. I hit a good 6-iron then but the wind died and it flew the green and I couldn’t get up-and-down. So it was a double where I didn’t really hit a bad shot.”
Another bogey on the testing par-3 15th followed, but back-to-back birdies on the two par-5s left him back at the top playing the last.
“I knew I could reach both par-5s, so I said to myself that if I can even birdie one of them, then I knew I’d be in with a chance and I hit a good drive and a 2-iron to about 30 feet on the 16th and two-putted, then hit a drive and a 4-iron to the front edge on 17 and managed to get that up-and-down.
“At that stage I was four-under and 18 was a real brute with the wind into off the left and the hole dog-legging left, so I knew that if I even made five it was probably going to be enough with how windy it was. And if somebody beat me, then fair play. They’d earned it.”
As it happened, a six at the last would’ve still seen him over the line, and he ended up two clear of the quartet of Dunmore, Joe Dillon, Eddie Tracey, and Eoin O’Brien.
The win – following his success at the Castle Pro-Am in June, his hat-trick at Luttrellstown, Donegal, and Newlands in late June and early July, and his triumph at the Conor O’Dwyer Charity Pro-Am at Kilkea Castle in August – makes it his most win-laden season to date, surpassing the five victories he had in 2022 on his way to winning the Order of Merit for the first time.
“Aye, six wins… It’s probably my best season ever,” he divulged. “I won five back in 2022, so to get the sixth win was really nice, and there’s still four or five left so I’d love to be able to push Simon [Thornton, who leads the Elavon Order of Merit] as far as I can.
“But though it’s mathematically possible to overtake him, he’s too good of a player. He’s going to finish well in three or four of the events and make it impossible, so it’s all in his hands rather than mine.
“But it’s been a great season so far, and I just love competing and will continue doing it for as long as I can.”
But while that mathematical chance – however slim – exists, Kilpatrick is intent on doing his level best to make sure the race goes to the wire and the next opportunity comes this week at Westport where he’ll be in familiar company as the tournament sponsor, Ben Walsh, regularly joins the Banbridge man as an amateur partner and they’ve enjoyed team success on several occasions, including landing back-to-back team victories at Murvagh.
“Yeah, Ben’s been unbelievable,” Kilpatrick said. “I probably ran into him five or six years ago, and he’s always had this goal to put Westport Golf Club more on the map with Tour Operators and to get the golf club to where he feels it should be.
“He was Club Captain last year and put on a smaller Pro-Am, but then this year he said, ‘To hell with it, I’m going to do it properly for the next couple of years and hopefully we’ll get local councils or the local businessmen to take it from there’.
“But he’s really putting his heart and soul into it, which is incredible.”
Walsh upped the prizefund from €20,000 in 2025 to €40,000 in ’26, and instead of being contested over one day and 18 holes, it’s now a two-day, 36-hole event. And in Kilpatrick’s mind, that elevates an event beyond just the financial stakes and creates a much better atmosphere for the club and town.
“The two-day events just feel much more like a tournament,” he said. “One day events can just feel like you’re showing up, playing golf and going home. But the two day events, you feel like you have to prepare a wee bit better. Obviously you’re going to stay down, but you’ll probably go the night before and stay a couple of nights.
“Maybe try to play nine holes of practice the evening before to get yourself ready, and that all adds to the tournament feeling of it. It’s going to be a really great event.”
Last year’s staging was the first time Kilpatrick had played Westport since 2005 when a 16-year-old Rory McIlroy won the Irish Amateur Close Championship there, beating Galway’s Eddie McCormack 3&2 in the final. Kilpatrick was beaten in the round of 32, but had fond memories of the golf course from then and those were rubber-stamped on his return for last year’s Pro-Am.
“Yeah, that was the last time I played it before last year, so I’m definitely going to go down on Thursday and play nine holes and prepare as well as I can.
“It’s a golf course with a gentle enough start, but from the 7th onwards, you’re really into the brunt of the course, and when you get to the back nine, stand on a few of those tees and you’ve got Croagh Patrick in the background and Clew Bay there as well… It’s absolutely class.
“I’d say on those first five or six holes you can really open your shoulders, but then it’s a course that favours accuracy as it can become quite narrow – depending on where they put the tees, of course, and if we’re right off the back, then there’s a lot of hitting in it.
“Michael McGeady won there last year, and if you’re going to be in with a chance, you’re going to have to hit the ball really well.”
Leave a comment