Cork Golf in review: Sara Byrne's brilliant win a highlight of 2023

THIS was another great year for golf in Cork. 

It didn’t hit some of the highs of previous years but there was a lot of success. There was just one national title added to the honour roll in 2023, that was when Sara Byrne won the AIG Irish Women’s Close in Connemara in June.

It was a second win for Sara, particularly impressive when you consider she’s only 21. She previously won in 2017 in Enniscrone, three years before she headed off to University of Miami. The win this year in Connemara was particularly nice, given that she reversed the result from 2022. 12 months previously she had lost out to Beth Coulter at the Grange but Byrne triumphed to claim her second national title.

That was the start of an impressive run for the Douglas golfer. She followed that by making the cut on two LET Access tour events, which means she will have a category on the LET next year if she chooses to turn professional when she graduates college. Her return to college was also impressive, winning two events after representing Ireland at the World Amateur Team Championships.

HIGH

It was a tough year for Peter O’Keeffe as the four-time Irish Champion will no doubt have judged himself against higher standards. O’Keeffe started the year as a member of the Walker Cup training panel, but he struggled to find consistent form in the first six months of the year. It wasn’t for the lack of effort, Peter traditionally had a quiet start to the year but he pushed on to compete in all of the early season tournaments with only a sparse return. A top-10 finish at the South African Amateur was the only highlight. 

It wasn’t that O’Keeffe was playing bad golf, the results were almost always reasonably good. It was more a case that those playing around him, especially other potential Walker Cup players were just doing better.

O’Keeffe went deep in the South of Ireland in Lahinch in late July. He sailed through the 36-hole qualifier, and saw off five matchplay opponents to reach his second successive final. Many thought that this would be O’Keeffe’s year, but he’s made it clear that he loves the championship and the course, in fact, everything about famous West Clare town. His previous results backed that up, reaching the Saturday or Sunday on every recent visit.

Uncharacteristically poor weather took much of the enjoyment from the final for the spectators and the players. Going into the back nine it looked like O’Keeffe might prevail but he lost out on the 18th in a tough battle. O’Keeffe will be back, his best golf might come and go but his approach and his determination mean that he’ll be one to watch for 2024.

PROUD

John Murphy was another golfer who had a mixed 2023. 

One thing that Murphy will be proud of is the staging of the fifth Pro Shop Challenge in Kinsale Golf Club. Murphy has played in all five stagings and this year was his first as a tour professional. There was a touch of sadness as the event was dedicated to the memory of Darragh Ryan who passed away in late 2022. Darragh was involved in the first Pro Shop Challenge in 2017 when funds were raised for Special Olympics. 

This year was the first staging since Covid and it raised over €40,000 for Breakthrough Cancer Research and Arc House thanks to the efforts of John and his coach Ian Stafford.

Jack Murphy was another golfer to continue his upward trajectory in 2023. 

He won the Connacht and Munster Boys championships and he had a number of top-10 finishes in Ireland and further afield. He was selected on the Jaques Leglise team and he also made the matchplay stages of the Amateur Championship in June. The leaving cert student will have one more summer in Douglas colours before heading to the US in August to start on a division one college scholarship.

Morgan Cain finished the year in Tennessee but he started brightly in Portugal in February winning two Toro Tour events. He had a few mixed performances over the summer before heading to Tusculum University in Tennessee in August. He hit the ground running in the US, chalking up a second place and two further top 10s while also helping the team to a win in the King University Invitational.

John Doyle and Robbie Walsh also racked up big wins in 2023. Doyle won the Boys Close in Monkstown while Walsh won the Lee Valley Scratch Cup. Both will be looking to kick on in 2024.