SANDRA O'CONNELLtalks to Brian Kelleher
I’VE BEEN THE teaching pro here since 1999. I started playing golf as a 13- year-old and kept it up, deciding early on that I didn’t want a proper job, a nine-to- five in an office.
I’ve a 35-minute drive in from Innishannon and start at either 8am or 11am. If I can I’ll go to the gym before starting, but I have people booked in for lessons most mornings.
The profile of golfers has changed enormously since I started. When I grew up, only people from a certain background played golf. Not any more. It has opened up enormously and I think that’s great.
From my own perspective it means I never know who’s going to come through the door. One minute it will be a bunch from a pub social club, next some corporate guy.
They all have different stories to tell and, depending on how long the course of lessons they have booked is, they generally like to tell you. People do confide in a golf pro.
It’s important that I listen too, not least because golf is a very psychological game. So much is about confidence. If they think they can play better, they will play better.
I get complete beginners starting from scratch and seasoned golfers coming in with a particular problem. Very often the cause of their problem is the TV.
They watch the Golf Channel or YouTube and try to copy someone’s style, or change their swing in some way, and then find they can’t get their old technique back. The most common complaint is slicing the driver.
Golf is funny in that some people have great fun out there but others stress out over a game. There is just them and that little white ball out there, and no one else to blame when it goes wrong.
I have lunch in the golf club. I’m getting married in November and decided to lose weight for it, so I haven’t had chips in three months. I order salad instead. I miss chips. But I’m also running my first marathon in May, so that’s helping me lose weight.
In the afternoon it’ll be more lessons. We get a lot of kids in. There’s no point giving an individual lesson to children under 10 because it’s too intense, they just don’t enjoy it. It’s much better that they play any sort of sport to develop their hand-eye co-ordination and only have group golf lessons until they are older.
Twice a week my last lesson is at 8pm – because we’re floodlit – which means I’ll be out by 9pm and on the road home. I rarely play on my time off because what with marathon training and a three-year-old child, there just isn’t time.
Brian Kelleher is PGA golf pro at Fota Island resort, Cork