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Dermot Gilleece explains Kinsale’s remarkable post- September 11 financial recovery A SUPREME Court hearing on December 10 will decide the long-term future of the Old Head of Kinsale. But the more immediate wellbeing of the country’s costliest green-fee facility has already been secured by a remarkable marketing campaign. The devastating events of September 11 last year had a profound impact on the Old Head. Cash refunds of #800,000 on cancelled green-fees meant an overall drop of 20 per cent in income for 2001 and a rather bleak outlook for this year. John O’Connor, the club president, decided it was time for action. In late September, he embarked on a six-month world marketing tour, covering 60,000 miles and three continents. And the pay-off? “As a result of an amazing number of late bookings, we will exceed our target for this year by 1,000 rounds,” said O’Connor. Effectively, this comes down to 15,000 rounds at green-fees ranging up to {ðE}250 each. So, instead of wringing their hands and cursing their misfortune, they are now set to embark on a {ðE}700,000 clubhouse extension of 3,500 square feet, which was shelved 11 months ago. “The Old Head have clearly bucked the national trend,” said Paddy O’Looney, chief executive of SWING, which markets golf in the south-west. “While green-fee income has held up surprisingly well, certainly in our region, the spend overall is down 15 per cent.” Deciding that he had to look to markets other than the US, O’Connor did promotional work in Brazil, Argentina and Chile. And from South America, he went to Japan, Hong Kong, China, Korea, Malaysia and the Philippines, fertile terrain for an expanding international golf market. There was also a trip to South Africa. As it happened, he was in Chinawhen Tiger Woods was playing an exhibition inMission Hills and while in Japan, he had as an interpreter, Rosses Point native Jude O’Reilly, who learned the language while caddying forsuch leading Japanese players at Massy Kuramoto and Shigeki Maruyama. “We distributed videos and other publicitymaterial to all the key people in golf,” O’Connor went on. “And an overall investmentof around #120,000 has proved to be money well spent.” Meanwhile, much ill-informed, even nonsensical comment has been said and written about the Old Head since Eddie Hackett confirmed in August 1990 that it would be possible to build a golf course there. In exasperation, O’Connor was moved to remark: “The notion has been put about that the Old Head is the Phoenix Park of Cork; that it is an archaeological preserve, belonging to the people of Ireland. A national treasure it is: a national park it most certainly is not.” The previous owner, Michael Roche, farmed it “At various times from the mid 1980s onwards, I offered the Head to Cork/Kerry Tourism, the Board of Works and the Cork County Council,” Roche recalled. “I told Cork/Kerry Tourism that it was a national monument but they showed no interest. And I got the impression that the Board of Works would have been interested if I was prepared to give it to them for nothing. The only people who made an actual bid for it were Cork Co Council, but their offer was nowhere near the sort of figure I had in mind.” He eventually sold it to its present owners for #212,500. No planning permission was necessary for the construction of a golf-course on the Old Head, given that the work was done before the law was changed in 1994. But Cork County Co insisted that there were public rights of way on the property. Basil Hegarty, a Cork City-based solicitor representing O’Connor, thoroughly investigated the matter. And while aware that for generations, people had used the Old Head, climbing over gates and walls, he concluded that, from a legal standpoint, they had not established any rights there. And he was correct. THE club, which had no statutory obligation to protect environmentally sensitive areas of the property, agreed early on to permit public access. When the situation proved to be unmanageable, however, in the context of personal safety, the concession was withdrawn. So it was that perennial trespassers had a rude awakening when they could no longer wander there with impunity. Still, it was necessary to seek planning permission from Cork Co Council to build a clubhouse. That was when the council imposed a condition of public access from dawn to dusk, 365 days a year, which was later upheld on appeal by An Bord Pleanala. But when the matter came before the High Court in two, separate hearings, it ruled that: “The imposition of such a condition (by the Co Council) is manifestly unreasonable and unenforceable.” And the matter didn’t rest there. “By appealing to the Supreme Court, An Bord Pleanala want to create a rambling right whereby the public can effectively ramble all over the golf course,” said Hegarty. From O’Connor’s perspective, this has “serious implications for developers and land-owners everywhere.” In July 1999, the greatest six-ball in modern history, played the Old Head in what was hailed locally as the Shamrock Shootout. It was an event which simply cannot be repeated, given that Tiger Woods, David Duval, Mark O’Meara, Lee Janzen and Stuart Appleby were joined by Payne Stewart, who died tragically in a plane crash three months later. That day he was moved to say: “Tourists are going to love this course, especially when it matures. I certainly plan to spread the word . . . “ It was this sort of feeling for the place which prompted a return visit last weekend by international member, Denis Watson, who will be remembered for a share of second place behind Andy North in the 1985 US Open at Oakland Hills. That was where the South African incurred a crushing, two-stroke penalty in the opening round when a 10-foot putt stood on the lip of the hole. Instead of waiting only the permitted time of 10 seconds for the ball to drop in, Watson waited a further 20 seconds for gravity to deliver, which it eventually did. But it was another member last weekend who captured, most graphically, the impact of what O’Connor has achieved. As the owner of an American company which lost 97 employees in the horror of the Twin Towers, he was back at the Old Head. Proving that golf in a beautiful place can help to heal wounds. 910 D3 G20 MP600 This article is from http://www.24wholesalegolf.com/ More Wholesale Golf at http://www.24wholesalegolf.com/
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