Reopening delayed
By Shane Brophy
The last year has been challenging for everyone, home life, work-life, school and general health have all come under strain due to Covid 19.
Sport in general, while a great outlet for young and old alike from both a participation and spectator perspective has also been curtailed, left strictly to the professionals on television.
However, there is light at the end of the tunnel. While the rollout of the vaccinations continues across the country, sports such as Golf and Tennis are set to be among the first to be allowed to reopen, however, not from April 5th as many has expected.
A new date of April 26th was set to be confirmed by government last night (Tuesday), along with underage outdoor sports training, with inter-county GAA training set to resume from April 19th.
An April 26th restart will be welcomed by Portumna Golf Club with its 700+ members, many of whom come from the North Tipperary area.
During the lockdowns, staff and volunteers in the South East Galway club have continued their drive to improve the offering to its members.
It has allowed the course staff to work unhindered on several projects, including major drainage work, tree care works after storms, tee-box restructuring, bunker reconstruction and tree stump removal are some of the projects taken on by course superintendent Kenneth Kelly and his team.
This is while always maintaining the high level of green and fairway maintenance that members and visitors have become accustomed to.
There have also been improvements in the Clubhouse with a total office reorganization due to Covid requirements. A lot of this work was carried out by volunteer committees and all these improvements will help in delivering top-class facilities to all makers and visitors.
“It’s through hard work of staff, committee members and a fantastic volunteer ethos in this Club that over many many years that has brought us to this point and keeps us all going during the pandemic,” said Portumna Golf Club chairperson Kevin Donnellan.
These facilities were acknowledged recently by Irish Golfer magazine by placing Portumna GC in the top 50 courses in Ireland (47th) behind the likes of Royal Portrush (1st) & Portmarnock GC (2nd).
Also, in the World Amateur Golf Rankings 2020 (GB & Irl) Portumna was ranked in sixth place behind Hoylake (1st) for the quality of the participating golfers while hosting the Connacht Strokeplay Championship which it will continue to host over the next two years.
The club chairperson also noted the receipt of an R&A grant and a Golf Ireland administered resilience grant as a great help in carrying out the various improvements.
Like all clubs Portumna relies heavily on members subscriptions and it has been very encouraging to see many members renew already and he encourages all members to do likewise in these very challenging times.
The recent increase in new members is very welcome and the club will have some limited offers of membership this year and a women's Get into Golf beginner programme for those who would like to try out the game of golf.
Kevin Donnellan has also thanked the members and volunteers for their adherence to various Covid restrictions and realize that when Golf does open again there will still be restrictions for the foreseeable future.
In the meantime, Portumna Golf Club will continue to strive to improve its Course & Clubhouse for its members and visitors to this “sparkling, little known parkland with a big heart” as Irish Golfer magazine put it.