Kinsale’s Pro Shop Challenge takes place today, and the even has raised almost €30,000 for two Cork charities.  A large crowd is expected in Kinsale this afternoon for the skins match that will see John Murphy and Rory Best take on Kinsale PGA Professionals Ger Broderick and Ian Stafford.

ARC House and Breakthrough Cancer Research are the beneficiaries of this years event and organiser Ian Stafford is thrilled with the response so far.  “We absolutely delighted with the total of €28,000 so far.  Our initial hopes going into this was that we could match what me made from the previous four events which was around €15,000 so to nearly double that has been amazing.”

This is the fifth staging of the event, and the first since 2019.  There’s a poignant element to the event this year as it’s being held in memory of Darragh Ryan who passed away late last year.  Darragh was Ian Stafford’s nephew and he was involved in all of the previous pro shop challenges.

“The original idea behind it was to help raise money to send Darragh Ryan, my nephew as a volunteer to aid Team Ireland at 2017 Special Olympics World Winter Games in Austria.  In April of last year Darragh was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of cancer and lost his battle with the disease on December 20th aged 23.  During the eight months Darragh was ill a constant question we asked as a family was what has caused this and why wasn’t there any way of treating this, it is during times like this that you become aware of organisations like Breakthrough Cancer Research and they work they do to try and find ways to prevent and treat this awful disease.”

It’s a great tribute to my nephew Darragh, Rory coming down and playing and John giving us his time and people contributing to the event.  People can still contribute to on the day.  The go fund me page is still open and donations can also be made on the course.”

Rory Best is a new addition to the line up for the event, the Irish Rugby Captain excelled on the pitch for two decades and he swaps the rugby ball for a golf club today.  Murphy has played with Best on a few occasions and he’s excited to team up with the Irish legend.  “I’m just glad there’s no contact in golf.  Rory is well used to pressure and is well able to hit a golf ball.  It’s going to be a lot of fun, he’s very competitive and I think he’ll really want to come out on top.”

This year the competition will take the format of a skins game, with the team with the most winning holes taking the perpetual trophy.