Philip Reid on how Waterford Crystal has established an exclusive niche in the major sporting market
On Sunday evening next, if all goes according to plan, the newest champion of the Irish Open will be called onto the 18th green at Portmarnock. He'll be introduced to the crowd and, in one hand, will be placed a cheque for €300,000 which, one assumes, will be pocketed to leave two hands free to grasp his other prize, a newly-commissioned trophy crafted and designed by Waterford Crystal.
In golf, whether it be an amateur chasing a captain's prize, or a professional pursuing one of the game's great titles, nothing symbolises the moment of success like receiving a piece of this sparkling glass. It has established an exclusive niche in the market and, these days, on the professional golf circuit, more Waterford trophies are awarded to winners than any other brand name. On the US PGA Tour, one third of all tournaments have their own specially-designed trophies that have been crafted in Waterford.
Trophies with the familiar green seahorse discreetly engraved include the Players' Championship, won this year by Davis Love, who earlier in the season had also collected a Waterford trophy for winning the Pebble Beach Pro-Am; the Honda Classic, won in March by Justin Leonard, the 30th successive year it has been presented to the tournament's winner; and, on the women's tour, the Solheim Cup, among others.
A trophy is a reminder of how a player carves out his win. When Ken Venturi won the US Open in 1964, he stood to address the crowd with his prize money in one hand and the trophy clutched in the other. Looking at the trophy, he remarked, "I'll spend the money, but this will last forever."
Not surprisingly, it is the trophy of choice for the Irish Open, dating back to Carroll's sponsorship in the 1970s and continued in 1993 when Murphy's assumed title sponsorship. This year, Nissan, the new main sponsors, opted to continue the association; but also wanted to make their own statement, wishing for a contemporary design.
The man called on to provide the inspiration was Michael Fanning. Ironically, Fanning - a native of Waterford - produced his last golf design for Murphy's a decade ago. Since then, he has been working on designing exquisite giftware for Marquis by Waterford.
"We wanted evolution rather than revolution in creating the new trophy," explained Mel Morgan, the marketing manager. "We felt it was important to use the same mind to hold on to the continuity of the past yet breaking the mould with a distinctive look."
So it was that four months ago, when the commission was made, Fanning provided pencil sketches, thumbnails of possible designs.
"I had maybe 30 or 40 ideas in my head and, basically, it is about putting them down on a piece of paper and then narrowing them down to four or five," explained Fanning.
What evolved was a design featuring a square base that is representative of the four provinces of Ireland while the sculpted top part captures, as Fanning puts it, "the swing and the ball".
The process is not a quick one. In production, prototypes were made - not to scale - to get a feel for how it would look and also to discover any technical problems, as the actual trophy is one that will be around for a long, long time. Once those involved were happy that everything was in order, the actual trophy itself was created, with Ken McEvoy spending over 100 hours sculpting to bring Fanning's design to reality.
The square mould started out as a rough piece of glass that was cleaned and given its basic shape but the ball, the top part of the trophy, was an entirely different process as it was sculpted from a solid piece of crystal. In all, the process took four months to complete and the result is a stunning contemporary design standing 22 inches high.
"I took a hell of a lot of satisfaction in designing this particular trophy," insisted Fanning. "It's been a huge honour, and is breaking new ground for me. I remember when Sergio Garcia turned professional and the first trophy he won was the Irish Open.
"I'd like to think that another emerging player, someone who is going to go on and do great things, will also claim this trophy. In that way, it becomes a part of history, generating the stars of the future."
Waterford's association with producing trophies for golf goes back to 1956 and, appropriately enough, it all started locally in Waterford Golf Club. At a time when Waterford was establishing a worldwide name, some workers in the factory wanted to showcase the craft on a new trophy for the Waterford Scratch Cup.
A trophy - to be won by among others Joe Carr, Philip Walton and John McHenry over the years - was created and it remains the largest ever made. it stands four feet high and is far too heavy to be lifted, remaining on permanent display in the club.
It was to be a couple of decades later before Waterford really broke into the American golf trophy market, and the input of singer Bing Crosby was a significant one. Playing in a Pro-Celebrity Golf Tournament organised by the BBC, Crosby was so taken with the prizes that he commissioned the company to create a trophy for the Bing Crosby Pebble Beach Pro-Am.
That proved to be the genesis for an increasing number of US Tour events to commission the crystal trophies and, now, the Players - unofficially dubbed golf's fifth major - Championship, the Phoenix Open, golf's biggest crowd-puller with over 400,000 attending over four days, the Wachovia Open and the season-ending Tour Championship are among the large number of tournaments awarding Waterford.
The Solheim Cup, the women professionals' equivalent to the Ryder Cup, is also a Waterford trophy, and it is an association Morgan is particularly pleased with: "It ranks alongside the majors for the women. The career passion is overwhelming to participate on either the European or the American teams, especially since Europe's win at Loch Lomond in 2000."
Away from golf, trophies have been commissioned for major tennis tournaments and for Formula One Grand Prix races, but the most intriguing story relates to cricket. In 1998, the MCC commissioned Waterford Crystal to create a replica of the Ashes Trophy for presentation purposes. The original urn is less than four inches high and contains the ashes of the burnt wicket bales in England's historic 1882 loss to Australia.
Controversially adjudged to be too frail to leave the MCC cabinet at Lords, the crystal trophy - an exact replica in detail but much larger - has become the most prized trophy in cricket. "Normally our replicas are smaller than the original but, in this case, the Ashes replica is 10 times the size of the urn."
And when the Australians arrived for the 2001 series in England, it was revealed they had pre-booked a one-way first-class ticket from London to Sydney for the trophy. They used the seat.
Whoever manages to win the Nissan Irish Open trophy this weekend won't have to go to the same extreme measures, but they will be taking their own place in sporting history as the possessor of a stunning piece of crystal designed and made here in Ireland.
