Winter Sports


been with Carton House since 2001 and will be giving me the inside look at how the grounds team look after such a desirable training facility.


Mark, John and the team at Carton House


provides a training facility that is dedicated to being the best sports training centre for professional teams in Europe. The team is made up of fourteen full-time groundsmen and greenkeepers. Mark, a very highly regarded


greenkeeper, tells me that Joe Meagher is the main guy that looks after the training pitches and I got to meet Joe briefly, who was busy marking out the rugby pitches in time for the arrival of The Lions. Mark tells me that he has a background


in dairy farming; “I liked the farming and all, but just knew it wasn’t for me, I needed to do my own thing. I think I had seen a magazine with a fairway mower in it and I just thought, ‘that looks brilliant!’ Also, I used to look after the lawn at home, and our mower had a roller on the back of it. I was mad into getting the lawn striped up!” Mark left the dairy farming and went on


to enrol in The College of Horticulture in Termonfeckin in County Louth where he picked up a national diploma. He spent two years doing work experience from the college at Gleneagles. “That’s really what did it for me. The staff live on site at Gleneagles. They have something like two hundred rooms for staff, which was great


for attracting all sorts, from all over the world.” After Gleneagles, he spent some time at Lahinch Golf Club, then a spell at the K-Club before going back to college, this time Elmwood, to do his HND. “That’s me, I have been here ever since.” The Carton House grounds consists of two championship courses, The O’Meara and the Montgomerie Course. The O’Meara Course was designed by two-time major winner Mark O’Meara, it hosted the 2005 Irish Amateur Championship. The Montgomerie Course was designed by Colin Montgomerie and has hosted some of the world’s finest golfers at the 2005, 2006 and 2013 Irish Opens and the 2010 Irish Seniors Open.


PC JUNE/JULY 2017 I 99


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