National Volunteer Award for Nenagh’s Minogue

By Thomas Conway

The economic value of volunteerism in Irish sport is estimated to sit somewhere in the region of €1.6 billion annually. That’s an eye-watering figure which tells its own story. And yet it is fair to say - and the members of Riverdale Pitch & Putt club will back this claim up wholeheartedly - that the value of Seán Minogue to both his own local club and to the sport in Ireland more generally cannot be expressed in monetary terms. Because it is simply unquantifiable.

Last Friday, the Nenagh native was unveiled as County Tipperary’s 2025 recipient of the Volunteer in Sport awards, a series of national honours granted by the Federation of Sport Ireland and supported by the Sport Ireland national network of 29 local sports partnerships. Together with 35 other county recipients (four of whom are from Dublin), Seán will receive his award from the Minister of State for Sport Charlie McConalogue T.D., at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Blanchardstown on Thursday week.

The awards are as much a reflection of Ireland’s increasingly eclectic sporting landscape as they are a recognition of the country’s rich culture of volunteerism and generosity. A colourful array of characters and games feature, from GAA to cricket to badminton to basketball. Even American Football is represented. But Seán’s name and indeed his story stick out.

For years he has shifted seamlessly between virtuoso player and canny administrator. In many ways it was inevitable that the stylish left-hander would become synonymous with Pitch & Putt. After all, the house he grew up in was around only “two or three hundred yards” from Nenagh’s original Pitch & Putt course in Sallygrove. His childhood was spent navigating those tricky par-3s, a process which became even more challenging in 1973, when a new course opened on the Old Birr Road and the Riverdale Club was born.

Major achievements

There is a stunning, meticulously detailed tribute to Seán on the Pitch & Putt Ireland website, chronicling his evolution in the game as well as some of his major achievements. As a player the mid-nineties were his heyday. His two All-Ireland titles, in 1993 at Lakewood and 1995 at Tralee, were certainly highlights, but really and truly it was his trip to Australia, representing Ireland, that will go down as the high watermark of an illustrious playing career. That was “the big one,” he says, and not just because it was an exotic trip to the other side of the world. Ireland pulled off a landmark win, Seán collected three points from a possible four, and the tour went down in national Pitch & Putt history.

From an Irish perspective, the game remains in a good place. Pitch & Putt may not garner the headlines that golf does but there is no doubting Irish ability with club in hand, male and female. Team Ireland landed an historic double victory at the Europeans last July in Lucan, winning both the men’s and women’s events. Nenagh’s very own Stephen Shoer played an instrumental role.

Seán says the growth of the ladies’ game is something that Riverdale has prioritised in recent years, and that their efforts are paying dividends.

“In the last couple of years, we’ve started to get more ladies playing, which is a big thing for us. We have a ladies taster course on at the moment - it’s on again next Saturday - and that’s to try and encourage more people to play,” he says.

An officer in Riverdale for the past fifty years, Seán knows exactly what is required to run a club and run it successfully. He still feels that Riverdale has the potential for more growth. The club is doing well but lots of people remain oblivious to its existence. He says Nenagh is “lucky” to have its own Pitch & Putt course and points to other nearby towns, such Thurles and Roscrea, which no longer have such a resource. Nenagh is also fortunate to have such a high quality playing area, and that is largely thanks to the efforts of Stephen & Paul Shoer, who invest huge amounts of time and effort in maintaining the surface to perfection.

Needless to say, there is a thriving Pitch & Putt community in Ireland. Few countries rival us in that regard - the game is popular in the Netherlands, and also in Catalonia, Seán says, partly because their athletes are allowed to compete under the Catalonian flag.

Initially his attraction to Pitch & Putt might have been determined by proximity to a course, but over time Seán has learned to love the game for its technical precision and lifelong appeal. But there is one other, practical benefit which he emphasises.

“The big advantage is time. It only takes an hour, pitch & putt. So, people can come and play it on an evening after work in the summertime. And also, older people can actually go out and play in the morning. They can get out and get their exercise. There’s a gain from that as well,” he concluded.