He's a a single-figure handicapper, but it's as a sculptor that Paul Ferriter excels, reports PHILIP REID

BEN HOGAN, a study in art if ever there was one, used to have an answer when asked where he got his swing. “The secret’s in the dirt,” he’d reply, a reference to the time he spent hitting ball-after-ball off the Texas soil – either sand or grass – in his quest to find perfection. His time on the range was accompanied by a series of divots, almost as if he were digging for oil.

Paul Ferriter also finds his perfection in dirt. He’s a golfer, able to play off a single figure handicap, but it’s as a sculptor that his quest starts and finishes.

The 41-year-old – born in Donegal, raised in Dublin and with a studio in the heart of Temple Bar – has earned an international reputation in recent years as one of the foremost sculptors, with a speciality in the golfing form.

His father, Seán, was a noted Gaelic footballer who captained Donegal and played for Ulster in the Railway Cup but whose other sporting passion was golf. It’s how young Paul was first introduced to the game, playing the links at Dunfanaghy . . . and, in fact, Paul has caddied for former Irish Close champion Ciarán McMonagle who these days has a card on the Canadian Tour. The two are still in contact. “He’s actually asked me to caddy for him in a tournament in Mexico in a couple of months’ time. I’m looking forward to it.”

Growing up, though, Paul was obsessed with drawing. And it eventually brought him to the National College of Art and Design and the progression from life drawing to sculpting was, he believed, a natural one. For him at any rate.

Ferriter’s own love of golf has enabled him to capture the essence of his subjects. Away from golf, he has been commissioned to produce bronze sculptors of such as the late Lord Killanin, the former president of the Olympic movement, and of businessman Denis Brosnan. But golf has been very much to the fore: Jack Nicklaus, Nick Faldo, Christy O’Connor – both himself and Junior – and Seve Ballesteros have all posed and subsequently seen their images portrayed in bronze.

Old Tom Morris never managed to see his sculpture, which is located at Rosapenna where the one-time father of the British Open – he won four championships between 1861 and 1867 – carved out his own artwork in creating the fine old links in north Donegal. Normally, Ferriter will ask his subjects to sit where he will take video footage, photographs and measurements. In the case of Old Tom, he worked off old photographs and, to get a sense of the man, visited his grave in St Andrews, talked to a local historian and read whatever he could find on the golfer.

The result of Ferriter’s ferreting is that the image of Old Tom – “the grand old man of golf”, as Ferriter put it – can be found aiming a drive down the valley holes which he designed on that piece of Donegal dunesland in the 1890s.

If the commission to reproduce a life-size image of Old Tom intrigued him and had him looking for his ghost on the old links, it is working with live people that more often than not engages Ferriter. He loves the interaction . . . and, working with so many famed golfers, there is a perk: “More often than not, they will offer me a lesson,” admitted Ferriter, who actually works on his game with the GUI’s national coach, Neil Manchip.

The process of sculpting is a complicated one, with each commission taking between five and six months to bring to fruition. “It’s obviously a 3D (art form), and the process involves taking measurements. But I like to get a sense of the person, to find their energy and their life. I want to portray the essence of the person and to bring the sculpture alive. Everyone has a way of standing, a way of walking. There’s something about each golfer that I want to bring alive.”

For example, Ferriter’s sculpture of Jack Nicklaus has him at the top of the back swing. “So powerful,” observed the artist, adding without any hint of arrogance: “Another sculptor would do Jack Nicklaus with an 18-handicap swing . . . because I have a good knowledge of the golf swing from my own passion in the sport, there are no flaws in the golfer’s grip or stance or body position.” In this regard, Ferriter is very much a plus-handicapper.

Once Ferriter has met his subjects, taken the photographs and the videos and talked with them to find “their energy”, the next step is to model the whole piece up in clay. Once he creates a mould, the next important step is to pore the bronze. It’s a painstaking and loving process that takes up to six months, and a task he very clearly enjoys.

The analogy with Ben Hogan isn’t lost on Ferriter. “Yes, just as Hogan found his golf swing in the dirt, I find my figures from the dirt . . . there is a connection between clay and the ground.”

And one of Ferriter’s most recent commissions is of an up-and-coming golfer who has been in the international spotlight for over a year. His name? Barak Obama. Word is spreading, you see.