KIERAN Lynch jokes that he won a trophy that Grand Slam winner Rory McIlroy can never add to his incredible collection. While the Baltimore golfer won the Connacht U18 Boys Amateur Open Championship in 2009, McIlroy had finished as runner-up six years earlier.
‘It’s my only chance at winning something that Rory hasn’t won!’ Lynch laughs, reflecting on his brilliant days as a junior golfer that saw him share the course with McIlroy, whose star reached new, dizzy heights after his US Masters triumph elevated him to the pantheon of golf’s greats.
‘The first tournament I ever played was the Munster Boys U15 at Mahon Golf Club in 2004, and I was just ten years old. Rory would have been in that field, too. At the time nobody knew that Rory was going to go on and do what he is doing, he was just another one of the junior golfers,’ Lynch explains, and their stories would intertwine at various stages.
‘My first big win came in the Connacht U18 Boys in 2009 when I was 15 years old. On the trophy it shows you the winner and the runner-up each year, and Rory had finished runner-up in 2003,’ he says, and their paths crossed again years later.
‘I played in the Nick Faldo series, and Rory had won that previously. I won it (U16) when I was 16 and again when I was 21. When I was 16 there was a world series final so I went forward to that after winning the Irish event. At the world final Rory, who had turned pro at this stage, was the guest speaker. I got to meet him there,’ Lynch adds, and while the talented Skibbereen golfer was making a name for himself in Irish golf – he was an Irish international from 2007 to 2013 – McIlroy was already a class apart. The County Down golfer from the Holywood club was destined for the bright lights.
‘I had a really good Irish boys’ career and played for Ireland. I was getting a year ahead of myself – my last year U14, I played on the U16 team, and when I was 16 I got on the U18 team. Rory was well ahead of that again,’ explains Lynch, who is the PGA Professional at his home club, Skibbereen & West Carbery Golf Club.
‘I remember chatting to the Irish coach, Neil Manchip, who is Shane Lowry’s coach now, and I asked him how good Rory was when he was a kid. By this stage, Rory was winning Majors. Neil said when Rory was 14 or 15 years old he was the best ball striker in the country; he was as good or better than the men on the Irish national team at the time. He was the best striker of a ball in Ireland; the ball made a different noise when Rory hit it, even at that age. He was destined for what was to come, he was so far ahead of everyone else.’
Kieran Lynch with Rory McIlroy in 2010 after the Baltimore golfer had won the Faldo series in 2009.
The prophecy came true on Sunday night when McIlroy (35) finally got his hands on the one Major title that had eluded him, the US Masters.
On a night of incredible drama and tension, he held his nerve in a sudden-death play-off to beat Justin Rose on the 18th hole at Augusta National Golf Club. His status as a golfing god is secured. Immortality achieved.
Not only is McIlroy the first Irish golfer to win the US Masters, he has become just the SIXTH golfer ever to win the Grand Slam, following his other Majors: the US Open (2011), PGA Championship (2012, 2014) and The Open (2014). He is the first since Tiger Woods in 2000 to win the Grand Slam, and also the first European golfer to achieve the feat. McIlroy now takes his place alongside Woods, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Ben Hogan and Gene Sarazen in the most exclusive golf club at all.
‘His Grand Slam was the most difficult of the six because the level of competition has increased every year,’ says Kinsale golfer John Murphy, whose paths have also crossed with McIlroy, from sharing the field at Irish Opens to chatting in locker-rooms ahead of tournaments.
‘Sunday night was one of those moments in sport you will remember forever. Rory will go down as one of the greatest players. I don’t think people in Ireland grasped that for a long time, maybe thinking that he was being hyped up a lot because he is Irish, but the fact is he is a generational talent.
‘I don’t think we will ever see another golfer like Rory McIlroy.’
Kieran Lynch won the Connacht Boys trophy in 2009. McIlroy finished runner-up in this competition in 2003.
Murphy first got to know McIlroy’s father Gerry when the West Cork golfer played in the 2021 Walker Cup at Seminole Golf Club in Florida.
‘I remember Rory was winning a tournament that day and Gerry still came out to cheer us on. From then on, we kept in contact,’ Murphy explains, their paths crossing again at the JP McManus Pro-Am at Adare Manor.
‘I remember one time speaking to Rory in an Irish Open locker-room, we had a lengthy conversation and it was pretty cool because he is someone I admire a lot. So to see him win the Grand Slam was special. I don’t think I was ever as invested in a round as I was on Sunday,’ adds Murphy, and Kieran Lynch was the same. This was one of the great sports events. An epic final round that had it all. By the end McIlroy emerged from the coliseum of August draped in a green jacket and his legend assured.
‘It makes him the greatest of his generation,’ Lynch says, and he believes we will see The Rory Effect on Irish golf. Golf Ireland CEO Mark Kennelly said this week that he feels the Down golfer’s ‘Grand Slam success will hopefully help to grow golf participation across the island’, and Lynch agrees.
‘I coach kids all the time, I coach in Bantry and Skibbereen, and golf has become very popular among young people over the last while. We have a growing number of juniors that we haven’t had in years,’ he says.
‘It’s brilliant for Irish golf now given that we are hosting the Ryder Cup in two years’ time at Adare Manor, so interest levels will be rising. If you were watching your first Masters, you couldn’t have wished for more drama or excitement than we saw on Sunday night.’
The increased interest in young golfers brings Lynch back to his own early days at Skibbereen & West Carbery Golf Club. Back then he looked up to Tiger Woods. Now this generation has Rory McIlroy, an Irish golfer who has ascended to greatness.
‘When I was young, around 13 or 14, there was a gang of around 20 of us who would get dropped to the golf club in the morning when our parents were going to work and we got picked up in the evening when they were going home. That’s where I kinda took off; I was good at the time but had the chance to put that many hours in every day,’ Lynch recalls.
‘There was a lull there for almost 15 years when there were very few juniors whereas now we are back to that situation where there are juniors there in the morning and in the evening, and they spend hours playing.
‘For me, it was Tiger Woods who was the hero when I was growing up. Now they have Rory, and he’s a Grand Slam champion. When you watch sport you want to see the greatest, whether that’s Usain Bolt running or Michael Phelps swimming, and now Rory has moved into a league above everyone else who is playing.’
McIlroy has won it all. The Grand Slam. The Ryder Cup. The Irish Open. But he doesn’t have the Connacht U18 Boys Amateur Open Championship – it’s one Lynch will always have over the greatest golfer of this era!
