On dozens
of Monday mornings throughout the late 1960s, a gentle and unassuming former
club pro from Portmarnock would tuck the Irish Press into the pocket of his
tweed coat and board the train in Dublin for the four-hour ride west to
Killarney. There he’d be met by Noel Cronin, now the club secretary of Ireland’s
exceptional Waterville Golf Club, and the two men would drive to what was then a
dormant nine-hole links on County Kerry’s lush southwestern coast.Though
virtually unknown outside Ireland as a course architect, Eddie Hackett was
gaining respect within his home country—and he worked for next to nothing, a
crucial factor in Ireland’s depressed economy of the time. Waterville’s
Irish-American owner, Jack Mulcahy, was convinced enough of Hackett’s talents
that he asked the humble little man to build “the best golf course in the
world.”
Upon arrival at Waterville’s rugged linksland, Hackett would tug on
some green rubber Wellington boots and ask European Senior Tour player Liam
Higgins to join him on his walks through the heaving grass-covered dunes, where
Higgins would hit various clubs to imaginary fairways and greens.
“He could see
things that none of us could see,” recalls Higgins, now Waterville’s head pro.
“He had his notebook and pencils and never really said much at all. Just things
like, ‘This would make a lovely green,’ but later you’d realize that was not
just a perfect place for the green, but the only place.”
