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Pat Smyth, a civil servant with the National Assistance Board in West Tyrone from the 1930's to the 1950's, recalls his memories, experiences and the larger than life personalities he encountered on the way.
Who but a sadist would site a golf tee inside an adjoining field of growing corn some fifty yards from the fairway? That is how the designer of Omagh golf course, desperate for extra space, assured the owner of the crops of a rich harvest of good golf balls annually.
The sight of a wide expanse of ears of wheat blowing in the wind under one's nose, as one took a swing, hypnotised every amateur, and even the low-handicap player often 'fluffed' his drive.
All used to look forward to the harvesting of the crop when the farmer uncovered lost balls by the bucketful, but sadly, most of them were sliced, in the literal meaning of the word, by the cutting bar of the reaping machine.
Apart from that particular hole, either the fifth or the sixth, Omagh's nine-hole course was as good as any other west of the Bann fifty years ago. It was not well maintained during the war as inter-club competitions were mostly abandoned.
The fees were modest enough, the equivalent of one shilling a week, with a Golfing union of Ireland levy fee of half-a-crown a year. Most of the members belonged to the white-collar brigade with bankers ahead of the field.
When light permitted they usually managed to play a round in later afternoons before tea, and another later on. Teachers were free as well and as a result bankers and teachers formed the low-handicap brigade of the Omagh team but, as I have said, competitions were few, travelling being curtailed because petrol was rationed and some enthusiasts not wishing to be seen frolicking on the links, instead of joining the forces.
The bankers were represented by Sam Carlisle. Pat Higgins, Richard Corrigan, Gerry Harbison, Pat Donnelly, Leo Mulhern, Bill Guerin and two others Sullivan and Madden, whose first names I cannot recall. The teaching profession had Violet Cusack, Aileen McCann, Eileen O'Kane, Leo Sullivan, Frank McLaughlin, Tony Shannon, Eddie Fearon and Mrs. Torney.
The legal profession had Rosa, Walter and Gerry Murnighan, Roddie O'Connor, Jack O'Doherty, Albert Monteith and Kevin Murnaghan. The business community had Paddy Mossey, Frank O'Kane, Jim Campbell, Louis Lynch, Harry and Billie Torney, Molly Hughes and the O'Reillys. I cannot remember any except Bill Dunn, Bob Askin, Jack MxIntosh and myself from the civil service patronising the links.
Those whom I have listed were active members. Half the professional people in the town were listed as members but served more in the role of patrons than players.
The medical profession, led by Barney Lagan and Bill McMullan, were some that rabbits like myself had to give way to while we searched for lost balls. The rough was very rough. One of my colleagues, Bob Askin, made history one day when he got a seagull in one, downhill drive from the first tee. The ball never rose and neither did the bird.
Golfing had emerged from the plus-fours tradition by the nineteen-forties but a few county folk still turned out in the traditional garb. John Dickie was one. He was chairman of the appeals tribunal, which dealt with social security matters. In the early days of golf the snobs who played would have ostracised a member who turned out without what was derisively termed 'diarrhoea bags'!
Once a year Leo Wallace, a professional from Newcastle, County Down, spent a few weeks at Omagh giving lessons. He was a wizard at diagnosing faults and correcting them, but his language was blunt and his patience thin. This didn't go down well with the ladies or the thin-skinned.
I went to him with a bad slice on one occasion and his reaction was curt: 'Hit two or three balls! Stand still! Now. What the bloody hell have you got your foot there for?' (The offending foot got a sharp kick). 'Pull it back. Put it there. Now hit another ball and don't change your stance'. Usually one's slice would have been instantly corrected.
Sadly, in my case, Leo wouldn't have been gone long before my slice was as bad as ever. He used similar tactics with wrong grips. With a number-eight iron he was a genius in teaching accurate chip shots. On the last occasion that I met him he was doctoring himself with yeast to combat shingles and even more testy than ever.
The course had many hazards. A low-lying meadow enclosed by a barbed wire fence to the left of the first fairway was a graveyard for balls. There was an unkempt sheugh bordering it and I once ended up in that with Pat Higgins on top of me when a group of us went sledging on the links during the December 1950 snowstorm. Pat and I represented maybe thirty stone in total, and our braking power was nil.
Those of us who saw nothing wrong in having a game of golf after Mass on a Sunday, had a ball in every sense of the term. We had the course virtually to ourselves all day for many members abstained on the Sabbath.
Paddy Mossey, I remember particularly well, as he was a part-time fire fighter. He rode an old bike and if the fire horn sounded, no matter what stage he happened to be at, he dropped everything, sprinted for his bike, and pedalled off up the Dublin Road.
The fire station was near Spillar's Place. They were past the hand-cart-and-bucket stage of equipment, but only just, and once, in Arctic weather, a burning building would have been reduced to ashes but for the presence of the army on duty at an adjacent post. They had an air-cooled pump whereas the town service had a water-cooled one, which froze.
Pat Smyth, 2001
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