Savour this Golden Age of Irish golf as the future does not look as rosy

If this is the Golden Age of Irish men’s golf how long is left? That might seem like a strange question when Rory McIlroy has enjoyed arguably the greatest season of his career, Shane Lowry has holed the clinching putt in a convulsive Ryder Cup, Pádraig Harrington is still winning Majors on the seniors circuit and nobody knows the ceiling of Tom McKibbin’s talent yet.

The problem is depth. Irish professional golf on the major tours is shallower now than at any time in the last 50 years. McIlroy and Lowry will both make the European team for the next Ryder Cup in Adare, and if McKibbin had not taken the Saudi shilling, he would be firmly in the reckoning too. He might yet be.

But there is no other Irish player who is likely to be in contention. Before the last Ryder Cup Séamus Power was playing so well on the PGA Tour that he was invited to play in the Hero Cup, a sort of midterm trial where the European Ryder Cup captain can explore potential partnerships.

At one point in that Ryder Cup cycle, less than a year before the matches in Rome, Power had climbed to a career-high 28 in the world rankings after winning a tournament in Bermuda. But in the second half of that season, he could only muster three top 20 finishes and suffered five missed cuts.

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This time round, he wasn’t in the conversation. Over the last couple of years he has been haunted by injuries and with the consequent loss of form has plunged outside the top 150 in the world rankings. He will be 40 by the time Adare comes around, which is a year younger than Christy O’Connor jnr in 1989 at the Belfry when he was a captain’s pick. The odds, though, are not in his favour.

So, where is the next generation? What happens when you scratch the gilded surface? The Ryder Cup is a barometer for the elite level of the game and that tells a tale.

The only Irish players to have appeared in the last five Ryder Cups are McIlroy and Lowry; in 2018 and 2016 McIlroy was on his own. Across the previous five Ryder Cups, however, there were five Irish players: Harrington, Darren Clarke, Paul McGinley, Graeme McDowell and McIlroy.

Tom McKibbin of Northern Ireland plays at the Dunhilll Links. Photograph: Jan Kruger/Getty

As recently as 2010 at Celtic Manor there were three Irish players on the team and that was also the case at The K Club in 2006.

But it was a much different landscape back then. Take the 2010 Race to Dubai, when what used to be known as the European Tour was still heavily supported by all of Europe’s top players, many of whom only made occasional appearances on the PGA Tour.

In that season, McDowell finished second on the order of merit, McIlroy finished 13th and there were five other Irish players in the top 50. In his first full season as a professional Lowry played 31 events on tour that season and finished 61st.

Contrast that to now, when the quality of the DP World Tour has been diluted heavily by its feeder relationship with the PGA Tour and when, perversely, more and more players from LIV Golf have been permitted to play in tournaments – despite LIV’s predatory activity in the player transfer market. The DP World Tour is so desperate for recognisable names at its events that it has invited the fox into the hen house.

In any case, there is only one Irish player, Conor Purcell, who is a regular on the DP World Tour. He made the jump this season having won twice on the Hotel Planner Tour last year, where he had been plying his trade since 2021.

For a rookie at this level, it is grindingly tough. Purcell has played 23 events this season and missed 12 cuts. His only top 20 was at the Hainan Classic in April. The top 110 players on the Race to Dubai retain full playing rights for the following season and going into last week Purcell was nearly 50 places outside that cut off point. In what remains of the season he will do exceptionally well to keep his card.

The DP World Tour does not have the depth of quality of 15 or 20 years ago, but it has a greater diversity of players now. In the current top 50 there are four players from Norway when 15 years ago there were none. There is a player from Japan and China and five from South Africa. There is a Finnish player too, when in 2010 there were none.

Conor Purcell at the Hainan Classic. Photograph: Lintao Zhang/Getty

At the turn of the century Ireland had eight Ryder Cup players on tour. That is unimaginable now.

Outside of McIlroy, Lowry and McKibbin, the last Irish player to win an event on the DP World Tour was Jonathan Caldwell at the Scandinavian Mixed in 2021. His winner’s cheque was €145,160, which is roughly the same as he has won in 117 appearances on the HotelPlanner Tour – the second tier of European golf.

This year he is one of nine Irish players on that tour, two of whom are inside the top 40 on the money list. All of the others, including Caldwell, are outside the top 100.

Where is the next star? For the last few years, the answer to that question has been McKibbin. He played at the Hero Cup at the beginning of this year, which clearly indicated that he was in Luke Donald’s thoughts. By then he had secured one of the 10 PGA Tour cards that were available on the DP World Tour and it seemed like he was about to climb to another level. At the Hero Cup rumours were already swirling that he was about to sign for LIV and at the end of January that move was confirmed.

By not playing on the PGA Tour this year he torched whatever chance he had of making the European team for Bethpage. Assuming that he will stay at LIV for the next two years, the odds are stacked against him making the team for Adare. Against McIlroy’s advice, McKibbin choose instant riches.

Maybe this is as good as it gets. Maybe we were spoiled for the last 20 or 30 years. The Golden Age couldn’t last forever. Savour it now.