The priest, the parish, and the pitch and putt course

PITCH & PUTT Community facility offers great value

Fr Finian Connaughton has been the Parish Priest in Drumconrath for the last 25 years and back when he first arrived to the area, Fr Connaughton decided to establish a pitch and putt course in a parish owned field.

Fr Connaughton first fell in love with the sport during his college days in Maynooth and was heavily involved in the re-establishment and setting up of courses in Duleek and Bellewstown.

“My first experience of pitch and putt was in college in Maynooth. On the days that we got out, we used to go to Leixlip pitch and putt course," recalled the Parish Priest.

"I got appointed to Duleek in 1983 and there had been a pitch and putt course there previously but it had pretty much died.

"I was involved in getting it reestablished and up and running again. I was involved from the start of Bellewstown's pitch and putt course. There was a serious amount of work involved in that and the maintenance that is involved there to this day is huge but it’s a top-class course.”

Fr Connaughton was first appointed to the Drumconrath/Meath Hill area 25 years ago and not long after he had started work in a parish field, with the intention of setting up a pitch and putt course.

“I came here in 2000 and there was this field at the back of our centre which was part of our parish land," said Fr Connaughton.

"Myself and Gavin Byrne, who is a local lad here, spent a good bit of time turning the field into a course and getting the greens sorted out. Most of the trees that were there were sewn at the start. Now you walk around and there are some beautiful beech trees around the place.

"It was a very raw field and the pitch and putt course gave it great character. Even if someday, the course closed down, its a lovely park area to walk around. It is a very good use of a parish land.

“There is no rent to be paid as its part of the community and we don't have members or member fees or anything like that. Everyone is the same, you come and you pay your €3 and you can play for the day.

"Most courses are nine or 18 holes, we have 10 holes. Anyone can come with one hand as long as the other, you don't need clubs or balls or anything like that, everything is included in the €3. It's very accessible from that perspective.”

As Fr Connaughton explains, Pitch and Putt is a sport that can be played by people of all ages and was a great outlet for many people in the community during the Pandemic.

"As a sport it's great. An 80-year-old grandmother or grandfather can play with their 10-year-old grandchild, there are not too many sports that are like that.

"It's such a great sport in that you can come down here and leave all your worries at the gate and just get out for an hour or so and enjoy yourself. It was great during Covid and plenty of people found it a fantastic outlet during those tough times."

Pitch and Putt can be an expensive business but the community involved in the course at Drumconrath have found ways to keep running costs to a minimum while still maintaining the course to an excellent standard.

“Running pitch and putt courses is a very expensive business, but we try our best to be cost-efficient. For example, the machinery used is vintage. Good, solid vintage machinery is very effective. It doesn't cost an arm and a leg. The machine used to cut the greens is a 50-year-old Ransom mower.

"If you ask any greenkeepers in any top golf courses, they'll tell you how good that brand of machine is. It leaves a very nice finish on the greens.

"The maintenance is very low. The machines are maintained by local parishioners. The maintenance work on the course is done to an excellent standard by Peter Hanratty and Micky Griffin."

Those involved in the course, including Fr Connaughton himself, get great benefits from keeping the show on the road at Drumconrath Pitch and Putt club located behind the community centre.

"It's a community effort and everyone gets great satisfaction out of keeping it going. I put in a lot of effort myself but I also get great benefit from it as well. Any Sunday morning that is fine, I am straight out on that course after Mass. There is a great crew that goes out on a Sunday and it's a lovely facility.

"It's seriously competitive when we are out there but that gets left on the last green and we come back in and have a lovely cup of tea and we knock great enjoyment out of it," concluded Fr Connaughton.