Two of Donegal’s rising stars take on Portsalon and Irish InterVarsities Golf Championship

It will be a red letter day for golf in Donegal next week when two of the young stars of the sport from the county will be taking part in the Irish InterVarsities Golf Championship, which is being hosted by Portsalon Golf Club.

Ryan Griffin and Cian Harkin aren’t a million miles from home and will take to the tee this coming Wednesday as two of the fancied players.

Ryan Griffin is a member of Ballybofey & Stranorlar and also involved with Letterkenny GC and Donegal GC, Murvagh, and golf has been his number one sport for quite some time.

"I kinda started playing with my father, Tony, when I was around eight,” he said. “I played everything when I was growing up and I kinda took golf more seriously."

His handicap, he says, did not plummet in the early years and the reduction has been gradual.

"It progressed over time. I started off and I was 21," said Griffin, who said he was playing off 9 at 16 and had reduced it to scratch at the age of 18.

Griffin said that he didn't get to play many competitions but it was only when he was around 18 that he started playing more competitively and especially when he went to Maynooth College on a golf scholarship. Now 21, Griffin has reduced the handicap to +3, which is impressive.

"There was a lot of practice done between the ages of 16 and 18," said Griffin, who felt that he was getting somewhere, even though there weren't many outlets to test his talent.

But that has changed now with the move to Maynooth where he is studying Marketing and Psychology. Griffin will be one of 14 from Maynooth who will be taking part in the Irish InterVarsities Golf Championships at Portsalon next week.

He comes into the event in top form having finished second at an R&A Intervarsites event at Cartron House just a couple of weeks ago shooting rounds of 72, 69, 70 (-5) only to be pipped at the post.

"There were players from all over, a lot came from England. I was only beaten by a shot and it was nice, in fairness," said Griffin, who is looking forward to playing Portsalon.

"I would know a lot of people up there in Portsalon and a lot of members will be out to watch. I would have played the course loads of times. It is a lovely place."

As for the future, Griffin said: "We will get through college and we'll see where we are at. And we'll take it from there. To have a career in golf, that would be the dream.”

The young Convoy man has his feet firmly planted on the ground and knows that golf is a tough sport. "Aye, you are on your own with your thoughts for four and a half hours. Through that time a few demons can creep in. I have a good interest in psychology and it does stand to you a lot of the time."

Cian Harkin set course records at Portsalon and North West to win the Scratch Cup at both venues this summer.

The Letterkenny man is a student at DCU, where he studies PE and biology, and plays off a handicap of +4. He has been playing golf since he was five years old.

“I was off +9 when I was 12, but the drop in handicap wasn’t just a lineograph,” he said.

“There was a sharp drop at a stage and then it got harder to drop. It took me three years to go from +1 to scratch. The handicap was stationary for a while.”

The 20-year-old plays out of Letterkenny Golf Club and this will be his first appearance at the InterVarsities competition.

He’ll be on familiar ground, though, having set a course record of five-under at Portsalon earlier this year. His summer form was encouraging, having shot rounds of 66 and 67 around Barnhill while four-under at North West also represented a course record by the waters of the Foyle.

He said: “I have a lot to work on between now and next week. I want to break par and it would be lovely to aim for a top ten finish. With it being at Portsalon there’ll be expectation on me, I suppose.

“I’m concentrating on my education at the moment mainly so my practise has been minimal. I be out at the driving range a couple of times a week, but it’s limited enough to what I’m doing.”

To date, his best national finish was his 13th at the Irish Close during the summer.

Last weekend, he was leading the Irish Open through 24 holes, “and I don’t even want to talk about the rest of it!”

He is coached by Sean Young, who is based at Foyle Golf Academy, having previously worked with Seamus McMonagle.

A talented goalkeeper, who featured with Bonagee United in the Ulster Senior League, Harkin’s sporting career is now solely about his golf.

He said: “Short-term I’d like to represent Ulster at men’s level and progress to the national team in the next five years or so.

“I always remember when I was younger wanting to be a household name in Donegal. I looked up to the likes of Enda Kennedy and Brendan Devlin who were so good. They were boys who were so consistent and I wanted to be a big name in Donegal like they were.”