Mad keen or just plain mad? Like almost all unsung heroes, in most areas of life, the volunteers - all 600 of them - who comprise the army of marshals and stewards that converge each year from all parts of Ireland to bring law and order to the Murphy's Irish Open have had their sanity questioned, more often than not by spouses but also by the spectators they are required to keep in check.
They come from near and far, from the north and south, and the east and west, taking up their posts with the dawn chorus and staying there until the last player has departed. The equipment supplied to them is often pretty basic, invariably a peaked baseball cap and an armband to give them with their sense of power, and perhaps a scoreboard or similar type placard depending on the required task.
But they are vital to the successful and smooth operation of a tournament which ranks second in size, in terms of the numbers attending, only to the British Open in Europe. They are the people who are integral to successful crowd control, and ensuring that players can walk undisturbed from tee-to-green and green-to-tee, and play their shots without interruption. When some of the world's top professionals arrive in Druids Glen for this year's Irish Open, which starts on Thursday week, they will do so in expectation of a well-run tournament. "Irish stewards have gained a great reputation," says Sean O'Neill, the chief steward, who is one of those most intimately involved in organising and administrating, "and one of the main reasons for that is that every steward and marshal is actually drawn from a club and knows the rules and etiquette of the game inside out."
Indeed, David Linnane, the tournament director, adds: "We're dependent on them to ensure the tournament's smooth running, and the fact each volunteer loves golf so much is undoubtedly a big plus."
In all, there are 28 clubs involved in providing stewards and marshals to the tournament with each club either assigned a hole or sharing a hole. It normally takes 22 stewards to man a hole. Many of the clubs - like Skerries, Enniscorthy, Carlow, Lurgan, Balmoral, Holywood and Royal Dublin - have been dispatching volunteers for over 20 years, ensuring a continuity that is unrivalled anywhere else in European Tour golf. "Our job is make sure that everything runs as efficiently as possible," says O'Neill.
The jobs assigned to each volunteer vary. Many are attached to individual holes with the responsibility of keeping the crowd quiet, manning fairway crossings and attending teeboxes. However, there are 52 match scorers whose task is to radio back information and scores to base and there are also 15 "spotters" who are required to accompany televised matches and give up to date information for television coverage. For example, the spotter will be able to radio back that Colin Montgomerie has 168 yards to the pin and is hitting a seven iron (this information is usually given to the spotter by the caddie).
For the last ten critical matches on the Saturday and Sunday - when the third and fourth rounds are held - the players will also be accompanied by match marshals who will ensure that the players have an uninterrupted path from green to tee and will also make sure that the spectators stay well back from them. Indeed, golf is one of the few remaining international sports where the crowd gets so close to the participant.
Other jobs include board carriers (mainly juniors) and volunteers to man the main scoreboards around the course and in the tented village area.
Preparation is meticulous; lessons learnt from previous years are taken on board. "Every year there is an extra page added onto the list of instructions circulated to the chief stewards," says O'Neill, a member of Kilkenny, a club that is among the mainstays of the operation.
Strange as it may seem, O'Neill has a namesake from the North who has also been involved in stewarding the Irish Open for more than two decades and, along with colleagues from his home club, has travelled all over the country to do his duty. This Sean O'Neill, from Lurgan Golf Club, henceforth known as Ulster Sean, has journeyed from the North to act as steward in Woodbrook, Royal Dublin, Portmarnock, Killarney, Mount Juliet and Druids Glen and is living proof of how seriously they all take the job. "It helps, too, that the spectators, generally, are among the best in the world, that they all know the rules and etiquette of the game. When to stay quiet, and when to cheer. It has created a special atmosphere that I believe is unique to tournaments in Ireland, no matter the venue," he says. Stewarding is a serious business, and those men and women (the ratio is split 5:1) who annually perform the task treat it as such. As far as anyone can recall, the only time that the system broke down was in Portmarnock in 1989 when it seemed half of Dublin descended on the links to see Philip Walton's quest for glory. He was beaten by Ian Woosnam in a play-off, but stewards and marshals were powerless to control the stampede up the last hole. And, down the years, there have been funny incidents. Ulster Sean remembers one such occasion at Royal Dublin. Play was interrupted by bad weather and halted for an hour or so, whereupon a number of stewards (who shall remain nameless) retired to a car for shelter and a little alcoholic beverage. Unknown to the sheltering stewards, play resumed and one of them spotted a man moving a rope from its position and walking around in the rough. The steward raced from the car, rushed up to the man in waterproofs and sternly told him to remove himself from the vicinity. At that, the "intruder" laughed, turned around, and asked: "Is it okay if I play my ball first?" It was, in fact, Walton. Then there was the occasion when the captain of the host club ventured out of the clubhouse and onto the course to personally thank the stewards for the job they were doing.
The stewards based on one hole, a long par five, had spent the tournament remarking how only one player in the entire field, Liam Higgins, had managed to hit the ball even remotely near one particular fairway bunker. However, the unfortunate captain, after shaking hands with the stewards, somehow managed to drive his buggy into the bunker, whereupon the sharp-witted Ulster steward looked down at the blazered captain, covered in sand, and said: `We've been here for four days and, do you know, you are the first to drive that bunker."
Generally, though, the stewards - mainly because of their golfing knowledge - have managed to ensure that tournaments take place without any incidents that affect their smooth running.
Men like the two Sean O'Neills, Finbarr Coughlan, Eoin Gahan, Michael Norris, Joe McNamara and their army of volunteers with peaked caps have ensured that the Irish Open has established a reputation second to none for efficiency. And, from the time the stewards and marshals gather in Druids Glen for the latest enactment of this great event in three weeks time, the onus will be on ensuring that the reputation is maintained.
"We've had over 20 years of top class stewarding, and long may it last," says Linnane. "Every year, we have new clubs wishing to provide stewards, while the tournament also retains the loyalty of those who have been doing it since the event was revived in 1975. In all that time, we've never had rows or arguments. Long may it last."
