Recognition for Monkstown golf stalwart Pat O'Keeffe

Monkstown’s Pat O’Keeffe was recently honoured by Golf Ireland, he won the Munster Club Volunteer of the Year Award. 

The well-known personality has been a member in Monkstown for over 50 years and after being honoured by the club at the AGM, he won the provincial award a few weeks ago.

Interestingly Pat, who led the club to two Munster pennants in the past ten years was the first in his family to play golf. 

He ended up in Monkstown by happenstance. He had only hit a few balls in the Douglas driving range and after playing nine holes in Monkstown with a member for the first time, John O’Reilly spotted him and encouraged him to join. 

O’Reilly, who would later become the GUI President, was the Junior Officer and signed up Pat for an annual sub of four pounds. O’Keeffe describes that encounter in 1972 as incredibly lucky.

O’Keeffe took to the sport quickly, going from a starting handicap of 18 to 2 within 14 months. “I played here in the 70’s, we had a brilliant team. We won the Aer Lingus (u22’s) in ‘76 and ’78 and the man who would have been a hero of mine was Phil O’Sullivan. 

"He was the junior officer, a one man operation. I absolutely loved it.” 

O’Sullivan was another great volunteer who helped shape the junior golf programme in Monkstown.

While Pat played in all of the provincial and national championships, his wins came in the team format. 

In addition to being on the winning Aer Lingus team twice, he also won the Under 22 inter-pros with Munster.

Pat’s commitment to sports clubs wasn’t limited to golf. O’Keeffe was also involved with Blackrock GAA through his family and he become involved with Cork Con through friends. 

In the way that things go, O’Keeffe was helping out with Con, he was kitman for the AIL team in the early 1990’s. 

As the Heineken Cup grew, he took on that role with Munster in the early years and he ended up as the kit man on the 2001 Lions Tour to Australia, the last of the amateur era. 

Pat was one of the backroom team that numbered just ten, a big difference to Woodward’s 2005 backroom team of 26. Pat has fond memories of that time.

“It was the start of the professional era, Munster had a phenomenal scenario at the time. It was based on Cork Con, Shannon, Garryowen and Young Munster to a large degree. 

"There was an unbelievable bonding spirit there, it was real Munster,” said O’Keeffe. 

“The bonding was unbelievable, you had Galwey, Clohessy, all those fellas, Anthony Foley, Eddie Halvey.” 

Pat went on to be President of Cork Con in 2010, the year when the club won the AIL and the national cup.

The work never stops for Pat. While we’re chatting in Monkstown, he gets a call from another team manager. 

He’s booking in a practice session that Pat needs to add to the diary. As the team director Pat looks after all of the planning and logistics, from planning with the club committee and the team managers, to getting time on the course and coaching sessions. 

He’s team manager for the three boys inter-club competitions, and with over 150 junior golfers, Monkstown has a great base of young golfers to work with.

O’Keeffe was team manager when they won the Irish Senior Cup in 2015, and managed the winning boys foursomes team last year. 

“The biggest highlight was probably the boys, now I’ll qualify that because my son was on that team. We had lost two Munster finals in a two with the same team so I thought getting to the underage All-Ireland finals was fantastic. 

"There was a jamboree of 32 different clubs in Castletroy and it was amazing. Just to be there for the three days was great, it was huge.”

“We probably have a better opportunity in the boys foursomes, we have the same four underage again” said Pat when asked about their chances in 2024. 

The seasoned manager always has a positive but practical outlook. 

“But of course it’s a handicap competition so who knows. The Fred Daly is still ultra-competitive in Cork but we’ll put our best foot forward but with the right draw and a bit of luck who knows.”