Harnessing the wave: Co Cavan GC unveils big plans for juvenile players
Feature
A damp Thursday evening at Co Cavan Golf Club. The incessant rain has seen the course closed, in common with most of the golfing facilities in the county, but there remains plenty of life about the place.
The weekly 50-50 fundraising draw is under way, a steady stream of members drift between the bar and the clubhouse entrance, and the hum of conversation and craic carries through the corridor, where the walls are adorned with photos of past officers and champion players.
For a club, founded in 1894, with such a long and proud history, that buzz is significant. Like a lot of its peers, Cavan – the ‘County’ part is usually superfluous among local players - faced its challenges over the last decade but it has bounced back strongly in recent years. Nowhere is that resurgence more evident than at juvenile level.
Last year, the club welcomed a wave of young members and now, the aim is to move that to the next level in terms of organisation.
“Last year we had a huge influx of juvenile members,” says Player Development Officer Shane McDermott, himself an Irish international and one of the leading amateur golfers in the region.
“We had over 200 juvenile members so as a committee we came together at the end of 2025 and we recognised we needed to put a significant structure in place to really cater for that.”
While it was one of those good problems, the numbers, as PGA professional Pete Duignan explains, were, in one way, overwhelming. Catering for that many rookie players - adolescents and children - requires a strong structure, which is now in place.
“Last year, we had 212 kids, it really snowballed. Our job is to educate these kids - it's based around education fundamentally at the start.”
The surge did not happen in a vacuum. The club has been promoting itself strongly, focusing on fundraising and generally rising standards and then the ‘Rory factor’ kicked in. Junior convener James McDermott traces some of it back to what was a crossover moment in Irish sport.
“In 2023, 2024, we might have only had 40, 50 kids and Rory McIlroy winning the Masters just seemed to spike the interest. We had kids just coming up to the driving range in a queue, waiting to get in to hit golf balls.”
The challenge for the club, then, was not attracting juvenile members, it was harnessing that interest properly.
“After that we made significant changes to our programme for 2026,” Shane explains.
“That came from parent feedback and also member feedback so we have made a change to our membership for 2026, we kind of really want to educate the juveniles both on and off the golf course.
“With their membership now comes two group coaching lessons, so that's going to be mandatory –to join the golf club, you’re going to have to go through that induction process and with that, you're going to have two group coaching lessons with Pete and myself.
“And then you're also going to have an induction day kind of covering the ethics of golf and the basic rules. What we want is that kids feel welcome here but it doesn’t become a free-for-all where parents just drop their kids to the golf club. We want parents to drop their kids to the golf club but we really want to educate them and provide them with a level of coaching and try and make some good golfers too.”
It is a decisive shift. In previous years, like many clubs around the country, juniors could join and, with the best will in the world, simply drift onto the course. Some thrived. Others developed bad habits. Many never truly integrated into the club structure.
“The problem we had last year was that a lot of kids just joined the golf course and they went off and did their own thing,” Pete says.
“The plan now is we want to help them to integrate into the club and to be part of a club rather than be just individuals.”
The new model is deliberately structured. Membership is no longer a form and a fee, it is a process.
“So to join the golf club, you fill out your membership form, but you must attend the induction evening,” Shane outlines.
“And then from that, you sign up to the group coaching, which will be weekly from the induction day (this Sunday, February 22) on. And then once you have your two group lessons done, your membership is activated. So we really want as much time as we can possibly get with them fully signed up with the golf course.”
The induction evening will be central. It will introduce children and parents alike to the ethos of the club. From there, the coaching pathway begins.
“What they're going to be taught is just the basic fundamentals of the etiquette of golf, how to book their tee times, how to behave on the golf course, what the golf clubs are, the different parts of the course, what the greens are, bunkers are…” Pete says.
Once those two group lessons are completed, access to the booking system is granted.
“This is a PGA led and a golf course led system. It's going to be up there with some of the best systems of any golf course in the country. Cavan will be one of the most juvenile-friendly clubs around and it will be one of the most professionally led juvenile systems in the country,” Pete says.
That ambition is not confined to coaching alone. The physical layout of the course itself has been adapted subtly.
“We've also made a change to the golf course that they'll be playing,” Shane explains.
“We've introduced a yellow tees golf course, so it's much shorter, kind of juvenile-friendly golf course, so the better juvenile golfers can hopefully try and,shoot lower scores, you know, make some birdies, eagles, stuff like that…
“So it's a more juvenile friendly golf course is basically what we're trying to do and then it's kind of a natural progression then from the yellow tees back to the more adult tees as they progress along.”
In addition, there will be juvenile-specific tee times and protected slots at weekends, ensuring young members are not squeezed out by the demands of adult competitions.
Competition will be another cornerstone. The club intends to significantly expand its juvenile calendar.
“It's up to us to really put a huge emphasis on our competitions calendar for 2026,” Shane says.
“So we’ve made significant changes to that. So we're going to be looking at running a lot of single individual events, team events for kids, along with match play events.
“In line with that, we're introducing a Vincent O’Connor Golfer of the Year trophy, we're going to have elevated summer events for juveniles to participate in, basically majors for the kids and two match play tournaments where they can accumulate Order of Merit points and then obviously whoever has the most points at the end of the summer is crowned Vincent O’Connor Golfer of the Year.
“Along with that we're bringing back some of the traditional juvenile match play trophies which would have been part of our club for over 50 years.
“We kind of really want to reconnect the juniors with the history of the golf club.”
That reconnection with history is important in a club where tradition runs deep. On March 8, the girls’ and boys’ captains will hold their drive-in on the same day as the senior male and female captains. The Elegant Gems parent and child competition is also returning.
Beyond internal competitions, the club is making a statement nationally.
“We're actually bringing two significant junior events to the golf clubs, the Nick Faldo series in April, which will be a qualifier event, and then an Irish Junior Open event which will be on the Bank Holiday weekend at the end of May. That's a first for Cavan, ever. It's not just one event, it'll be two significant juvenile events,” Shane says.
For young golfers in the county, that exposure to high-level competition on home turf could be transformative.
Underpinning everything is coaching. Beyond the mandatory lessons, an optional 10-week programme will be available.
“Again, as a committee, we really want to emphasise and stress the massive push we're going to put on coaching the juveniles that come through Cavan Golf Club. So it's not just a case where you just kind of land. It's almost like a football club where you're coming up, you're getting coaching, and we really want to push everyone on and develop them.”
Pete echoes that flexibility.
“This is going to be for everybody. If somebody wants us to hold our hand the whole way through it, we'll hold our hand the whole way through it. If somebody wants to try and hone in on their skills and all that, then we'll absolutely do that. We're trying to provide a system for individuals as well as engaging with the golf course here.
“This is the start of a multi-year project, we're in this for the long run. It's not going to be just for this year, we have our own focus on where we want the juvenile to be in a few years’ time. We want to be fairly strong at inter-club level. We want our own individual kids to go off and represent themselves as best as possible,” Pete says.
“Shane is an Irish international so it's good to have a role model involved in that. I'm obviously PGA Pro and all the other lads are fairly good golfers as it stands so they have plenty to look up to and plenty to focus on.”
For Shane, the motivation is personal.
“I'm 28 now, I'd say we lost a generation maybe, close to 10 years, so we need to get that back,” he says.
Asked what has encouraged him, as a competitive golfer, to invest so much time in junior development, he points to the bigger picture.
“It's just kind of that lost generation. If I'm looking at the golf course now, I'd love to see not just one or two, I'd like to see 10 to 15 significantly strong players. If you look around other top clubs around Ulster, they're very competitive in juvenile golf, it doesn't mean that you have to be going and winning things but it'd be nice to be entering teams.
“I suppose from my perspective if you start entering teams and then start getting competitive, in the next seven eight years, you're getting competitive in Ulster as a province and then moving it to Ireland.
Pete sums it up simply. “It's nice to give something back.”
Shane agrees. “It's nice to give back and it's nice to be involved with teams as a youngster too. You’ll look back on those days fondly.”
James, now 35, knows how fragile junior participation can be.
“From being a member up here all these years ago myself, you know, I'm 35 now and there's probably only maybe three or four of us still playing who started playing with me.
“So that's why I took on the role that I did (Junior Convener). This is focusing on creating a friendly environment for kids to keep them interested in golf. A lot of footballers, for example, finish the football and then they're like, ‘oh jeez, I should have started playing golf earlier’.
“And I have an 18-month-old child, which I would like to see him golfing as well.”
The club’s recent inter-club achievements offer inspiration. In the last few years alone, Co Cavan has won a Jimmy Bruen All-Ireland, a Pierce Purcell All-Ireland, a Junior Cup Ulster, multiple Ulster Four-ball titles and reached the All-Ireland final of the JB Carr.
For all the trophies, though, the emphasis remains broader than silverware.
“We're here with the goal to help, but we want them all to be part of the club community here as well,” Pete says.
“There's aims that we want to do, like building lifelong skills, promoting physical fitness, enhancing mental focus etc. There's loads of different things here that we can do for the kids.”
Shane adds: “It's so social as well. But it's getting very, very popular, even boys playing football now, at a younger age and stuff like that.”
Ultimately, the mission is clear, as James puts it.
“The mission from day one is just to provide a structure and an enjoyable experience for the juniors, to develop young players both on and off the court. To give them confidence, skills and friendship, and a lifelong love for the game.”
For parents interested in signing up, the process is straightforward – see the QR code on these pages - though places are limited.
“The spaces are going to be limited to a degree so early registration is encouraged now. We’ll have an induction evening on February 22. It’s from eight-year-olds up to 18.”
Co Cavan Golf Club is certainly on an upward swing. With the new structure, the aim is to make it sustainable.