Travel
John Garrity is already established as a celebrated golf writer for Sports Illustrated, Golf Magazine, and Golf.com. In his new book Ancestral Links: A Golf Obsession Spanning Generations, Garrity embarks on a quest through the most remote corners of the island homes of his ancestors tracking down family history and golfing lore all at once.
In the process of gathering information about a famed golf course, located deep in the northwest pocket of Ireland, that no one of reputable opinion can stop talking about, Garrity learns that the small town nearby is the very same where his great-grandfather lived before emigrating to America. His travels there ignite his interest further, and he begins to trace his extended family tree by way of the ancient game. He heads to Scotland, discovering the roots of his maternal ancestors whose tee times pre-date the foundation of the "Thirteen Rules" of golf, made official in 1774. Back in America, he finds himself swinging along the St. Croix River Valley, where his father learned the game as a young boy.
Garrity crosses oceans to land in small towns and villages, all of which have been altered by sprawling golf courses, all of which have been torn up by players who share his bloodline. Piecing together his memoir-travelogue, Garrity constructs an intimate web of family history that will touch any fan of golf, Ireland, or home-spun narrative, sunny and lush like a first tee in the morning.
Read an Excerpt from John Garrity's Ancestral Links (continued...)
I asked for a quick summary of his life in golf, and he readily complied. "I played soccer and Gaelic games," he said, "but the time came when I couldn't. So I took up golf. I used to play with the hurling grip, as we call it, the unorthodox grip." He butted his fists together with no overlapping or interlocking fingers. "I tried to change. I'd go to the local driving range and hit balls with a conventional grip, and the next day I'd have a pain in the shoulder."
"There's a driving range here?"
"No, in Blackrock, north of Dublin. That's where I was living at the time. But six years ago I went to a professional, and he taught me from scratch. I didn't see a golf course for three months." He pointed a thumb back over his shoulder. "I went up to a hill back here where Terry Swinson goes to hit golf balls. It's a big open area, all sand banks, and the grass is short because the animals keep it down. You'd think you were at Carne. Well, I hit balls there for three whole months until I got confident enough to take it to the course." While making the grip change, he added with a rueful shake of his head, his handicap had soared to 24. "But now it's back to 18."
"Which isn't bad at Carne," I said. I was thinking of my own 14.5.
He nodded. "The country members say an 18 handicapper at Carne will play to a 14 at any other course in the country, particularly a parkland course. Because Carne is so tough."
Kathleen went to get me a glass of water, and when she came back I had my notebook out. Following up on the Dublin reference, I asked if they were both born and raised on the Mullet. "I'm originally from here," she said. "I'm a Keane." She pronounced it Kane. "My family still has a little farm."
"A working farm?"
"Yes. It's nice to keep some traditions going." Her comment gave me the impression that farming on the Mullet was more of a hobby than a living.
"A lot of people who were brought up on the land have gone into building," John explained, "but I'm afraid our economic bubble will soon burst. A lot of those people will come back to work the land." As for his own background, John said he was from the seaside village of Blackrock, County Louth. "But my father was born just up the road here at Barrack."
"Big family?"
He nodded. "Nine in the family, five boys and four girls. My dad did his time in England, worked on the farms and then went to work for a construction firm. Fourteen years he was there, and then he married my mother. They returned to Ireland in '71, the year I was born. They wanted to bring the children up at home, but not all the way to Mayo, because they were afraid we wouldn't finish school here."V I nodded. I remembered my first trip here, in '89, when a Geraghty at Cross Lake had told me that Mullet emigrants rarely came back, "and why would they? They would want their children to be schooled." Education reforms, everybody now told me, had reversed that dismal trend. The Republic's system of public education was now the envy of most developed countries.
"I'm sorry. Your father's name is..." I looked up.
"John Geraghty, Sr. But they call him Jack."
I smiled over my notebook. "That was my dad's name."
"Really?" He didn't look that surprised. The Geraghtys had been recycling about a dozen male names since the time of the famine.
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