Last season was one to remember for Shannon Burke who, after completing a triple crown of provincial victories, is eager to take advantage of an extended women’s championship schedule and clinch more silverware.
With the North, South, East and West of Ireland Women’s Championships added to the schedule for the first time, Burke is looking forward to testing her game against the best players in the country more often and she knows she has the beating of anyone on her day.
And she hopes to start her run at today’s Flogas Irish Women’s Amateur Open Championship.
The championship returns to Newlands Golf Club for the first time since 2010 where England’s Hannah Burke was the winner, so it would be nice to add another ‘Burke’ to the trophy inscriptions.
“We had a Leinster Women’s there a few years ago and I have really great memories of it – it’s a really nice golf course. So I’m really looking forward to the event – it should be fantastic,” says the 30-year-old Kilmaine native who is fresh off a runner-up finish at the French Mid-Am.
This year, there is much more to play for in terms of prestige on the women’s circuit. With the four events added to the schedule, the calendar now matches the men’s and Burke is excited to see how her game holds up in higher quality fields more often.
“It was a no brainer,” she says of having the North, South, East and West events to play. “Even looking at the field for the South – it was the quality of an Irish Amateur field. It was very good, the more we can get the girls playing together, the better for all of us.
“If you were looking at last year you were looking at the Irish Amateur and the Irish Close as the two big events. The provincial championships I had a couple of wins there but it’s nice to be playing against the best players more often and I think the new schedule will do that for us.
“I had a good year last year and I was obviously really pleased with it. I put the head down over the winter; there were a few things I wanted to tackle, and I really am looking forward to a long season and it’s nice to have a full schedule.”
Burke was the toast of Irish women’s golf last year, winning three provincial events in Leinster, Munster and Connacht – the latter ending a 13-year wait for success in Bearna. She also clinched the Irish Mid-Amateur Women’s Open Championship and helped Ireland to a bronze medal at the European Mid-Amateur Championships in Spain.
While living in Cork, she was also a member of the Douglas Golf Club women’s team who defended the Senior Cup in August. Add that to a glittering CV!
The Ballinrobe golfer builds her game on her tee-to-green performance, and she was delighted to see her hard work on some swing changes come to fruition in fine style. She has no interest in taking a back seat this year either. Success breeds success, and Burke is hungry for more.
“I was very good tee-to-green throughout the entire year,” says Burke, who also played gaelic football and soccer growing up. “I played very well last year but I was more effective because I made some changes in my swing over the last three or four years and it ended up being a culmination of it all. Tee-to-green was very solid, and once you get that taste for winning you want to continue that run so it’s kind of like success breeding success; once you get it you want to be exposed to it more and then you get more comfortable with it.
“I was 13 years waiting to win Connacht! I first played when I was 16 or 17. I had lost in playoffs and on a countback. I really wanted my name on that trophy, so it was nice to do that last year and it set me up for the rest of the season.”
Burke is a household name at mid-amateur level now and Ireland have had success on the international front in that category. Jessica Ross is the reigning European Mid-Amateur champion while our teams have enjoyed wins at various international tournaments. Although Burke was disappointed that Ireland couldn’t go all the way and take gold at last year’s European Mid-Amateur Team Championships.
But she feels the standard of mid-amateur golf is extremely high and as she looks to take her game to the next level in fuller events, like an Irish Women’s Amateur, she feels her best golf can be good enough.
“The quality of those mid-amateurs, particularly the European Mid-Am and the European Teams, is really, really good. I had finished my studies and hadn’t been playing a whole lot of golf. It was the mid-amateur competitions that got me back into it again I would say, competing against people of a similar age and working full-time but trying to play golf. It’s a great setting and the standard of golf is really good.
“The top end of the mid-amateur events has great quality and when you go to the likes of an Irish Amateur the courses are set up a bit longer and trickier, so it requires a bit more from your game. But there are qualities in both fields.”
When you consider that Burke works full-time as a lecturer in Sports and Exercise Psychology at the Department of Sport, Leisure at Childhood Studies at MTU Cork, it puts her achievements into perspective.
Burke studied psychology at Maynooth University while competing on the Paddy Harrington Golf Scholarship. She then transitioned into a Masters in Sports and Exercise Psychology and did her PHD both at Ulster University. She did her PHD under the guidance of Lee-Ann Sharp, who is Golf Ireland’s lead psychologist.
How to balance work and golf is the key question for any working amateur and while Burke admits that it can be stressful at times, she is happy to leave her job to one side on the golf course but also knows that golf is not her entire life. Golf doesn’t define her and she feels that has lifted the pressure and has allowed her to play with freedom in tournaments.
“It’s all been a learning curve. There are times where I am very stressed because the workload outside of my actual job can be heavy enough as well. I would say I have learned what I am comfortable playing in to balance with work, but when you do get to a golf tournament it’s not the be all and end all, it’s not your entire life. That brings its own freedom to golf; if I have a bad round or a bad tournament it doesn’t change my life. I have found the balance of playing enough but not getting too stressed if the golf doesn’t go my way.”
Burke will be hoping to carry that freedom into the Flogas Irish Women’s Amateur Championship which gets underway at Newlands from today until Sunday. There already looks to be a bumper field in store with Aideen Walsh, Anna Abom, Anna Dawson, Olivia Costello, Kate Lanigan, Rebekah Gardner and defending champion Louise Landgraf – who is 49th in the world – coming to town.
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