Tuam’s Damien Coyne to captain Ireland golfers on world stage
One of amateur game’s biggest weeks of the year
WITH the highest temperature almost touching 40 degrees, it was a gruelling start that Wednesday but Ireland still somehow managed to secure their place in Singapore.
It was October 2023 when the team of Alex Maguire, Liam Nolan and Matt McClean battled the heat and humidity to surge up the leaderboard from T26 to T8. In doing so, they paved the way for this year’s trio of Stuart Grehan, Caolan Rafferty and John Doyle.
Ireland have already finished fourth in the European Amateur Team Championships on home soil this year, but over 11,000 kilometres away the Eisenhower Trophy presents another challenge.
Captain Damien Coyne and his players are ready to fight for Ireland’s second ever World Amateur Team Championships medal, and first since 2016.
“It’s a very exciting team,” said Coyne. “It’s one thing, talking to Stuart the other night is just to emphasise the point that we are going there to compete, and he is very keen to emphasise that we are going there to compete.
“We have a really, really strong team. Stuart coming off a Walker Cup experience, John has had an incredible year, he’s going to a stroke play event, his stroke play record all year has been second to none, same for Stuart. Caolan has the record over a long number of years as being a really, really strong stroke play player as well.
“It’s something we’re really looking forward to. We are going there to compete, and to go and prepare as well as we can, and I have no doubt that these boys are capable of going and competing at the very top end of this competition.”
Coyne grew up in Tuam, one of the hotspots for Galway GAA, at a time when the county’s Gaelic footballers were becoming a force on their road to winning All-Irelands in 1998 and 2001. Golf is also a major sport in the town and Coyne joined Tuam Golf Club in his early teens.
“My dad played, and he was left-handed. I’m naturally right-handed but because the golf clubs were left-handed I just took the game up left-handed,” said Coyne.
“I always had an interest in it. I would go caddy for him on Sunday mornings and all of that and took it up from there, and I was just in the backyard at home messing around with a wedge and chipping balls around the place ......
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