Irish Blind Golf is thriving

Dublin People 13 Aug 2021
Journalist Paddy Morgan tees off

By Paddy Morgan

Irish Blind Golf is an organisation which is close to my heart.

In 2019 Irish Blind Golf were struggling to get members as only five were attending the monthly golf outings.

IBG set out to attract new members through a vigorous campaign on social media and also produced a leaflet which was sent to many golf clubs in Ireland to promote Blind Golf.

IBG had a couple of conversations with National Council for the Blind in Ireland (NCBI) about setting up lessons with PGA Pro Graham Sweeney for their service users.

The training sessions were held at Elmgreen G.C. Driving Range on a weekly basis which started in 2019. The service users enjoyed the lessons and a couple of the service users participated in IBG outings and later became members.

Captain Phillip Bond

The lessons were progressing nicely under the guidance of PGA PRO Graham Sweeney along with NCBI and IBG who were promoting the events on their social media channels.

At the end of 2019 Irish Blind Golf started to become more active on social media by trying to attract visually impaired people to take up golf.

In 2020 there was a lot of uncertainly because the golf season was delayed due to the closure of golf clubs. The plan was to start the lessons again in 2020 but this wasn’t possible with restrictions in place.

Darren Slattery

Irish Blind Golf were able to get six outings in 2020 which was amazing. A few new members attended these outings which was really incredible.

In 2021 Irish Blind Golf were able to start their outings in June and these outings have been at Elmgreen Golf Club, Grange Castle Golf Club, Beech Park Golf Club and New Ross Golf Club with another five scheduled before the end of the year finishing up at Royal Dublin.

Oliver O’Connor

IBG have been delighted with the attendance for the outings by getting nearly double figures for the monthly outings and hit a new record as 12 members attended Grange Castle G.C.

In June 2021 Pat Morgan, who is Handicap Secretary of IBG, had multiple conversations with Paul Patterson who is the Operations Manager at Carr Golf and Elmgreen regarding setting up a National Training Centre for visually impaired/blind people at Elmgreen Golf Centre who have the ideal facilities.

Pat then brought the idea to the committee of IBG which was accepted and agreed to have the launch on Tuesday 27th of July from 12:30p.m. until 1:30pm.

The day finally arrived after a lot of planning.

IBG set up their sales and banners to let people know that we were there.

There was a great turnout as several IBG members attended the event including a couple of new recruits.

The session started with a few words from IBG chairman Eamonn McGee to kick off the launch.

Graham was very good with his time by giving simple tips to improve their game which had instant results to some of our members, which was brillant.

The event was supported by Golf Ireland’s Maeve Kelly along with Padraig Healy and Sarah Moloney from Vision Sports Ireland.

IBG were delighted that Golf Ireland and VSI could attend the event and were very impressed with the set up.

The weather behaved as it stayed dry while the launch was happening and for refreshments later on.

The plan for Irish Blind Golf is continue to grow membership by having training sessions once a month in Elmgreen G.C. and then expanding beyond Dublin in the future. Irish Blind Golf is delighted how well the launch went and will continue to promote their events on social media.

More importantly Irish Blind Golf is celebrating their thirty years Anniversary helping Blind and Visually impaired Golfers with a Celebration dinner on Phillip Bond’s Captains Day at Stackstown Golf Club on Friday September 17.

We would also like to wish our seven Golfers who will be competing in the British Blind open in Ballymena in August the best of luck.

Nothing is impossible

YOU DON’T HAVE TO SEE IT TO TEE IT.

Please give IBG a follow

You can find IBG on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter at IrishBlindGolf and you can locate IBG website by searching www.irishblindgolf.eu

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