RAFINO Golfers in Ireland

Ireland Golf Experience

Last July, a group of military has beens and mediocre golfers descended on southwest Ireland to challenge the golf courses and take in the sights.  (Sidenote-yes I know it is already September but being retired I do not relate to deadlines and pressure to get things done).  There were 22 in our group-12 pseudo golfers and 10 wives.  Old Finance Corps guys on the trip were:  Mo & Lyn Denny, Derald Emory (Marty was convalescing from a broken kneecap), Bill & Linda Henglein, Pat & Jane Riley, Al & Kathy Runnels, Roger & Debbie Scearce, Richard Shrank (Sandra also convalescing), Bob & Maggie Speer, and Ed & Paula Stanton.  Also on the trip were Mike & Maureen Bilbrey (Air Force Civilian), Dave & Joyce Mallory (Ordnance Corps), and Ben & Sandie Sewell (Medical Service Corps and Syracuse Comptroller Program).

Roger Scearce made all of travel arrangements with Hidden Links, Inc. and everything was absolutely first class.

Several of the group arrived early and some stayed longer, but most of us arrived at the Shannon airport on Saturday morning July 6th and were promptly and jovially greeted by Irishman John Chapman, our bus driver for the week.  John or Red Dog, besides being an outstanding driver, proved to have a magnificent gift of gab.  His bus was top of the line, comfortable seats, tables, a toilet (although you had to go down a couple of steps to use if you can imagine), and most important a cooler that we filled with the liquid refreshments necessary after a tough round of golf.  John was so popular with the group that Bob and Maggie Speer purchased a book written in Gaelic that he remembered from third grade that we all signed, and Roger presented him with a Finance Corps Regimental coin—he was really touched.

We arrived in the beautiful Killarney, a town of approximately 12,000, during a bicycle race for about 6,000 with the finish line right at our hotel.  The 4 star hotel, the Killarney Plaza, our home for the week met and exceeded all of our needs.  The full morning breakfasts were excellent and I particularly enjoyed the indoor pool, hot tub and steam room.  Killarney proved to be a “happening” small town and there were a great number of American tourists helping the economy.

Oh yeah, we did play golf and fortunately almost all of the time in good weather 60-70 degrees.  Our first adventure, on Sunday 7/7 was to the peninsula course on the Atlantic Ocean “Old Head”, a stunningly beautiful course.  It has been referred as “Pebble Beach on steroids” and many of the holes had drop offs of several hundred feet to the ocean.  We started off in beautiful but cloudy weather that did change to fog and heavy mist as we went along, but that did not diminish the enthusiasm of our dedicated group.  On one beautiful par three, I asked the young lad caddying for Rich Shrank if he had ever seen a hole in one on this hole.  He said he had not, so I promptly hit an 8 iron that miraculously went over the bunker and careened to….3 inches from the cup.  Unfortunately for me, the more polished golfer of the group, Bill Henglein hit a beautiful shot to within eighteen inches of the hole.  So, the gimme putts meant we halved the hole cancelling out any skin opportunity.

On Monday 7/8 we played Dooks, a traditional small town Irish links course again (as with all the courses) the Atlantic Ocean part of the gorgeous scenery.  Al Runnels had a good day.  I played with Roger who hit some prolific drives, sometimes they were even in the right fairway.  After the round the ladies met us and we had a good after round on the patio in the sunshine.

Tuesday took us to Tralee, an Arnold Palmer designed course.  We all had our picture taken around the Arnie statue.  This was my personal favorite, a superb layout and again just simply beautiful and another gorgeous day. 

Wednesday we had scheduled a sightseeing day and amazingly enough it rained.  That did not deter us as John and our bus meandered through many towns, part of the Ring of Kerry, to the Famine Cottages and the heartbreaking stories regarding the 2 million deaths due to the 1840’s potato famine (Ireland today has a population of 5 plus million).  We had lunch in the sea town of Dingle and just had a great relaxing day.

Back to golf on Thursday, another beautiful day, playing the Old Course at Ballybunion Golf Club established in 1893.  Fortunately, nobody hit it into the cemetery on the first hole.  This course was a real walking challenge with several hills, however the long walk paths had plush green grass.  After walking this course I realized why I was getting so tired.  In walking my home course the number of steps taken would be around 10,000, however meandering the Irish courses required around 18,000 steps.   

Our last golfing adventure on Friday took us to Waterville (est. 1889), again an amazing beautiful course on a sunny however more windy day.   The wind did play havoc on some of our shots.  I do not understand how so many good shots could turn out so bad, I just ran out of appropriate excuses, as did others in our group.  But we still had a great time and got refreshed on the bus trip home.

Not sure when we will have another overseas golfing adventure, hopefully in another year since age is becoming a factor for some of us.  The Friends of Finance (FoF) group of approximately 25-30 participants is planning the annual adventure for Sea Pines Plantation on Hilton Head Island in late April 2020.  We will be playing all of the Sea Pines courses including the Harbour Town course a couple of weeks after the PGA Heritage tournament.

Look forward to seeing many of you in Charleston at next year’s RAFINO reunion.

Respectfully and Unexceptionally Submitted

Mo Denny

modenny99@aol.com