Fermoy Golf Club look to boost membership

FERMOY Golf Club has just launched a special limited new member offer, giving golfers a great opportunity to join the popular parkland course. Less than 30 minutes from Cork City, the course is on the Cork side of Fermoy and easily accessible for all.

The new membership offer is only open to the first 30 applicants and offers great value at just €628 for the remainder of 2024. 

New joiners will become full members of the club and the inclusion of the Golf Ireland levy means golfers will have access to an official handicap index.

According to Fermoy manager Denis Twomey there has been plenty of interest in the offer. 

The club already has a large number of members who are living in or near Cork city and surroundings and Denis expects plenty of interest from locals and those willing to travel.

There are plenty of opportunities to play in Fermoy. Green Fees are very competitively priced at €30 during the week and €35 at weekend, and the club also has a midweek open series.

“We are running a Welcome Wednesday Singles, kindly sponsored by McGuirk’s, with weekly qualifiers for Grand Final on September 7 with dinner, play-off and €3,000 in prizes. The fee for visitors is €35 including food,” said Twomey.

In addition to the weekly series and several other opens, the club also has a number of scratch cups in the diary. 

“Our Minor Scratch Cup is taking place on June 29-30, and the Junior Scratch Cup is on July 27-28. The Intermediate Scratch Cup is August 10-11,” added Twomey.

Like all other sports facilities in Cork, Fermoy suffered from the heavy rain in spring, shortening the season and hampering the preparation work for the year. 

But according to Twomey the course is now back on track with further development work set to benefit members and visitors over the summer.

“Course staff were approximately nine weeks behind our winter programme but we are getting there, and we are able to get to all areas of the course now with machinery and the course is in great condition considering everything.

“We put in five new tee boxes in during the winter and hope to have them in play from June onwards. We also completed the total overhaul of our irrigation system and have started to install irrigation to our tee boxes which should help greatly during the summer.”

“We recently started a weekly club lotto to help finance various projects, starting this September with a major sanding programme covering the full 18 holes.”

DEVELOP

Fermoy has also continued to develop their practice areas, which was a huge benefit during the wet weather as Denis explained:

“We ran a Junior Programme over the Winter under the guidance of Paul Kiely (PGA) and had in excess of 40 Juniors taking part and our practice area made this possible as the weather would have prevented us using the course during the wet winter we had.”

To describe Fermoy as a hidden gem would be unfair. With over 700 members and a big market for green fees, classics and opens, Fermoy is a very popular spot for Cork golfers.

Golf in Fermoy dates back over 130 years, as a military base golf was a pastime of many of the British soldiers stationed there. 

Originally a nine-hole course was laid out adjacent to the river Blackwater on the eastern side of the town, and other references to courses include links in Duntaheen and the aerodrome and barracks north of the town.

The current course has been home to the club for over 50 years. The John Harris design is a par 70 split into two nines. Harris forms a link with the foundation of golf in Fermoy, he too was a military officer and held the rank of Commander with the British Navy. He was involved in hundreds of course projects including Shannon and the Castle Course in Lahinch. Now the course in Fermoy is known for it’s great condition and tricky greens. 

The back nine has many elevation changes which demands the golfers attention as they make their way back towards the clubhouse. The course has hosted several Golf Ireland events in the past five years and has proved to be a good test for golfers of all levels.

In addition to a fine course and great practice facilities, Fermoy has an excellent clubhouse which has recently been refurbished. The bar and restaurant offers great views over course and back towards the city.