Profile Gary Murphy: If it weren't for a desire to become a professional golfer, who knows where Gary Murphy's sporting prowess would have taken him?
He had trials for the Irish under-15 soccer team and, once, in a Leinster under-16 Colleges' hurling final - playing for CBS against St Kierans - he held PJ Delaney, who went on to All-Ireland stardom but is now retired, scoreless, until being substituted.
"PJ scored 1-9 off the fella that replaced me, so that's my claim to hurling fame," recalled Murphy.
Despite Murphy's loss to field sports, his decision to focus on golf cannot be faulted. Between 1988 and 1995 - the year he turned professional as a plus-two handicapper - Murphy played international amateur golf for Ireland at boys, youths and senior levels, claiming the Irish Close championship title in 1992.
Now, as a fixture on the European Tour, the ambitious 31-year-old Kilkenny man seeks a first tour win. Currently 80th in the Order of Merit - with earnings of €173,431 - Murphy aims to return to Valderrama for the season-ending Volvo Masters. "But my really big aim is to try to make the field for the American Express Championship at Mount Juliet (in September). If you win a tournament out here, it really sets you up . . . but I need to make two or three (victory) speeches to get in," said Murphy, who needs to become a top 20 earner. Ironically, Murphy is well-acquainted with Baltray. His father, JD, encouraged him to play there as a junior and he actually won the Sinalco Cup. "It's a junior competition Nancy Gannon used to run and I won it three years running," he recalled.
Since then, marrying Baltray's Elaine Kelly (last December), has brought him even closer to the Co Louth course where he has played numerous rounds.
Murphy is impressed with the course. "It's a more traditional links and hopefully the wind will blow and technology won't blow it away.
"It'll be great because it won't be a driver-fest which a lot of tournaments are these days, it'll place a premium on accuracy. It will require a lot of skill to get around. If you struggle from the tee, the fairway bunkers are very penal."
He insisted there would be little comparison between the course for this week's Irish Open and its appearance at the East of Ireland at the Whit weekend. "It's like night and day," he insisted, because of the new tees that he believes will add "at least two shots" to scoring. The rough, though, is "nothing like a Carnoustie job . . . it's patchy," he said, because of the dry spring.
"The other night, I hit it right on the eighth which normally would be a no, no and I could get it on the green. There are places where it is tricky, and guys will find them if the wind blows."
Murphy has been working with Bob Torrance, Padraig Harrington and Paul McGinley's coach.
"My improvement will come from how much I put into it," he said. "You can have the best coach in the world, but if you don't put in the effort, if you don't work on what you're trying to improve, it's irrelevant. I'm prepared to work hard and I'm confident what he is saying to me will make a big improvement to my game."
