History of Athgarvan Pitch & Putt Club
Perhaps an interesting way to begin the history of the Athgarvan Pitch and Putt Club would be to acknowlege the existence of a 9 hole civilian golf club and course (1910-1922). This course stretched from the old Lumville barracks to where our 15th green now sits. (This being the 9th green of the old course).
The course was set up by ordinary civilians and businessmen who could not gain membership at the Royal Curragh Golf Club of the time. After the British army evacuated the Curragh in 1922 the old links gradually fell into disuse. Below is the layout of the old circa pointed out to Mr. Eric Wallace by Mr. Bill Price (Both of Newbridge). Eric drew the maps of the Athgarvan and Royal Curragh Golf Courses as described to him by Bill who began golfing the Curragh circa in 1913.
As the years passed, the land where this old golf links once flourished began to be used for local sports. Various portions of it were used as a cricket ground, hurling and football pitches, camogie pitches and even a portion was used as a motor-cycle scramble track. Pitch and Putt at this time had not even been invented as a sport.
Many people may not be aware that the sport of Pitch and Putt originated in Ireland and is as native a sport as the game of hurling. Around the mid 1930s the game first came to be in the seaside resort of Fountainstown, Co Cork. It was the brainchild of a Mr W.A Collins, a bank official in Cork city at the time with the help of a colleague M J (Toey) Hunt (pictured). Both men were founding members of a leisure club called The Fountainstown Development Association. This club was home to tennis courts, croquet, archery and most importantly an 18 hole putting green. Mr Collins derived the idea for pitch and putt from this putting green and set about developing a course. In 1937 a nine hole course was built and became the first Pitch and Putt course in the country.
The game was met with much interest and more courses sprang up, not only around Cork county but in surrounding Munster counties. In 1944 the Irish Amateur Pitch and Putt Union (IAPPU) was established under the Presidency of Mr Collins and with the sport growing rapidly sights were being set on courses throughout the country and to develop the sport to a professional level. When Mr Collins left Cork and moved to Dublin his influence led to many courses and clubs being set up in Leinster. The first of these was at Ferrard, near Baltray Golf Club in Co. Louth. It wasn’t long before Leinster caught the bug for this great sport and courses/clubs were established throughout the province.
However, troubled times lay ahead. Although invited to affiliate to the IAPPU, the Leinster and eastern clubs felt they would lose their identity and possibly fall under ‘Cork Rule’ as it was put. They moved to set up their own organisation and in 1954 the ‘National Pitch and Putt Association’ (NPPA) was formed. With both organisations adopting slight differences in rules, distance to greens and the use of two clubs rather than three, it eventually became obvious that a unified agreement needed to be addressed in order for the sport to progress and move forward. Delegates from the IAPPU and the NPPA met on several occasions in an attempt to achieve agreement. Their proposals were put forward to officials from both sides in 1960 and talks ended with the formation of the ‘PITCH AND PUTT UNION OF IRELAND’ (PPUI) as we know it today.
The first convention of the PPUI was held on the 9th of October 1960 at Hillview in Clonmel, Co.Tipperary. Rules were drafted and structures for today’s game were put in place. At that time there were 42 affiliated clubs (28 in Leinster, 14 in Munster). Today there are 125 affiliated Clubs with 12,000 Members in 19 Counties.
Athgarvan Pitch and Putt Club – the Beginning
In 1949, while the sport of Pitch and Putt was still relatively in its infant years and Leinster Clubs were beginning to appear, even in Co Kildare, a small group of pioneering enthusiasts, local to the village of Athgarvan, saw the potential for a Pitch and Putt course in the area where the old golf links had once been. They set about structuring a 9 hole course, possibly unaware of the role this club would play in the future within the Pitch and Putt community.
With no official records or documentation stating the names of our founding members, we relied on the kind recollections and memories of various people who held an association with the club in the early days of its establishment. One such person who came to speak to us was Mr Jim (the Boiler) Conway. Jim played on the course as a teenager when it initially opened and recalls William H Smith or ‘Busty’ Smith as he was more known, charging him two shillings to play the course for two months. Jim also recalls Mr Tony Brady and Mr Jackie O’Brien discussing developments to the course with help from another local resident Mr Herbie Hewitt. These four men, we believe, were the founders of the Athgarvan Pitch and Putt Club.
Mr Cardiff enlisted the assistance of the then Tanaiste