Paddy McCarthy, Golfers Guide to Ireland and Hillary Madden, Monkstown Golf Club who won Best Golf Manager Munster.
Pic Orla Murray/ SON
The annual Golfers Guide awards were held last week and there were two winners from Cork. Monkstown’s Hillary Madden won the Manager of the Year for Munster while Cork Golf Club won the award for best parkland course. It’s cork’s fourth time to win the award in the past seven years. The annual awards took place at Portmarnock Golf Links Hotel and formed part of the launch of the Golfers Guide to Ireland 2018.
The full colour guide is now in it’s 27th year and will be available free of charge in all GUI affiliated clubs. The guide is a comprehensive listing of Ireland’s leading links and parkland courses and also provides details of specialist golf accommodation.
Pictured at the launch of the Golfers Guide to Ireland 2018 was Paddy McCarthy, Golfers Guide to Ireland and Matt Sands from Cork Golf Club which won Best Parkland Munster.
Pic Orla Murray/ SON Photo
For most golfers in Cork, Jerry Keohane is the driving force behind Lee Valley. But Jerry says he owes a lot to the original course designer. “There was one man who inspired me to and I learned a huge amount from him in two and a half years. He was the most amazing man I ever met, Christy O’Connor Jnr.” In a time before google maps or 3D modelling, Christy was a traditionalist, walking the land to judge the layout as Jerry explained: “He just had a simple drawing, a layout of the course and nothing else. He walked each fairway when he came down every week, sometimes twice a week. I’d be watching him and you’d ask yourself what’s he’s doing. He had some paint and he’d go around and mark out the greens and the bunkers and I was amazed by the man. He had no drawings or detailed plans, his 
It may be an old saying but it still holds true – drive for show, putt for dough and Wayne O’Callaghan is hoping to build on that with a brand new putting analysis system. Wayne, who is based at the Cork Golf Centre in Ballincollig, is one of only two PGA Professionals in Ireland to use the Capto Putting Technology system. Using a small sensor on the shaft of your putter, the system can instantly capture twenty key parameters of the putting stroke. Wayne along with Killarney based David Keating travelled to Spain in December to pick up their new systems, which offer a whole new level of detail when it comes to analysing putting. While there are several options for measuring the swing of irons and drivers, and there are several putting systems that capture the reaction of the ball once it’s hit, this is one of the first systems to focus on the swing and the actions of the golfer. The system operates by putting a small 3D sensor onto the shaft of the putter and using a computer or phone 
Cork Golf News 