Damien Coyne captains Ireland in Singapore

By DARAGH SMALL

With the highest temperate almost touching 40 °C, it was a gruelling start that Wednesday but Ireland still somehow managed to secure their place in Singapore.

It was October 2023 when the team of Alex Maguire, Liam Nolan and Matt McClean battled the heat and humidity to surge up the leaderboard from T26 to T8. In doing so, they have paved the way for this year’s trio of Stuart Grehan, Caolan Rafferty and John Doyle.

Ireland have already finished fourth in the European Amateur Team Championships on home soil this year, but over 11,000kms away the Eisenhower Trophy presents another challenge.

Captain Damien Coyne and his players are ready to fight for Ireland’s second ever World Amateur Team Championships medal, and first since 2016.

“It’s a very exciting team,” said Coyne.

“It’s one thing, talking to Stuart the other night is just to emphasize the point that we are going there to compete, and he is very keen to emphasise that we are going there to compete.

“We have a really, really strong team. Stuart coming off a Walker Cup experience, John has had an incredible year, he’s going to a stroke play event, his stroke play record all year has been second to none, same for Stuart. Caolan has the record over a long number of years as being a really, really strong stroke play player as well.

“It’s something we’re really looking forward to. We are going there to compete, and to go and prepare as well as we can, and I have no doubt that these boys are capable of going and competing at the very top end of this competition.”

Coyne grew up in Tuam, one of the hotspots for Galway GAA, at a time when the county’s gaelic footballers were becoming a force on their road to winning All-Irelands in 1998 and 2001. Golf is also a major sport in the town and Coyne joined Tuam Golf Club in his early teens.

“My dad played and he was left-handed. I’m naturally right-handed but because the golf clubs were left-handed I just took the game up left-handed,” said Coyne.

“I always had an interest in it. I would go caddy for him on Sunday mornings and all of that and took it up from there, and I was just in the backyard at home messing around with a wedge and chipping balls around the place.

“Eventually you take it up to the golf course and during the summers then pretty much every day, off on the bike and out, and you could spend most of the day playing golf, a group of us.”

Coyne attended the former St Patrick’s College Tuam and went on to study Environmental Science at University College Galway.

He finished in 2000 when the Rural Environmental Protection Scheme (REPS) had seen a huge uptake in the west of Ireland.

REPS was first introduced in 1994 for the establishment of farming practices and production methods which reflected the need for environmental conservation and protection. The scheme was also brought in to protect wildlife habitats and endangered species of flora and fauna. And for the production of quality food in an extensive and environmentally friendly manner.

“That’s where a lot of the environmental work was and there was a requirement for the people who were doing these REPS plans to have environmental training, which is what we had,” said Coyne.

“It was on the back of that then that I got into the advisory business and the rules and regulation side of it, rather than the whole production side of farming. It’s more the environmental side of it and a lot of the water quality, particularly in the environmental quality regulations that go alongside that.”

Damien Coyne Agri delivers all aspects of Agri / Agricultural Advisory Services across the West of Ireland now, with over two decades of experience.

And there has been a crossover with golf recently, after he was named Ireland Captain in a huge year for the men’s team.

“It's just meeting the people,” said Coyne.

“You meet all sorts of people and the age profile is from 18 years old, just all excitement and starting off and looking to be really progressive to, my oldest client is in their 90s and they have the love of what they’re doing and it’s just nice to meet all of those people.

“You go and you visit them, call to their farms, sit down and have a cup of tea with them a lot of the time and just listen to some of the stories that they tell you that teach you an awful lot about the way things used to be done.

“It was picked up on one of the local radio stations around us going to the World Amateur Team Championships in Singapore, that I would be leading a team there. You do get asked about that when you're going, how long you’re going for and what’s involved in it, and how long you’ve been doing this for, all the detail around it.

“Especially when it gets picked up locally, they are very, very interested in it and in what you’re doing and it’s all been good.”

The highlight of Coyne’s own playing career came back in 2009, and a lot closer to home in Tullamore, when he was part of a Galway Golf Club AIG Senior Cup winning side, alongside the likes of Eddie McCormack and Joe Lyons. But this week he will look to create more memories for the next generation.

The team travelled to Kuala Lumpur last Wednesday, where they began their preparation and acclimatisation. They used the week to work on their games, dealing with the Zoysia grass they will playing on in Tanah Merah Country Club.

And in one of the biggest weeks of the year for amateur golf, Coyne believes the future is bright as more and more players emerge on the scene.

“It’s very exciting and something I've learned this year as well,” said Coyne.

“When I came into the job this time last year, and you were looking at the players that were there and the few players that came through in the previous year, and at the start of this year.

“Stuart was probably still a pro, John was in boys’ golf and was on the radar, certainly but the progression has been huge. The likes of Gavin Tiernan coming through and Thomas Higgins.

“It’s exciting to see and hopefully over the next couple of years, a lot of the guys competing at boys’ level now, at the higher end of that, will make that step up to men’s golf.

“It can happen so quickly.”