Farewell to Tommy Corridan, gentleman golfer
Tom Corridan receives the Irish Amateur Close trophy from GUI President Mick Fitzpatrick at Killarney in 1983
Munster and Irish golf said goodbye to one of the great characters of the game on Wednesday when big Tom Corridan was laid to rest at St. John's Cemetery in his native Ballybunion, aged 61.
A larger than life character in every sense of the word, he was widely regarded as a gentle giant of the game, dominating boys golf here in the 1970's before emerging after four years in the wilderness to win the 1983 Irish Amateur Close at Killarney aged 24.
An imposing six-feet three and slimmed down to "just" 20 stone when he made his international debut in the Home Internationals at Portmarnock a few weeks later, he played at No 1 and beat the Scottish and English champions Craig Laurence and George MacGregor in the singles before halving with Welshman John Jones on the final day as Ireland won the Raymond Trophy for the first time in 28 years.
It was a memorable week for Ireland and Corridan, who had been concentrating on his career in architectural engineering in Limerick and found little time for the game at Castletroy before Ted Higgins Snr helped him with his game and he beat an 18-year old Eddie Power in that 1983 Close final.
“1983 was the year of the new handicap system, we all got shots back,” Power recalled on Twitter this week. “Tommy was off 5 and I was 4, so we both played in the first round on Saturday morning to play the byes in the second round. RIP Tommy, my old friend and fellow Close champion.”
Corridan would go on to play for Ireland in 1984, '91 and '92, winning three of his four Home Internationals to leave the scene with 13 wins, three halves and just five defeats from 21 matches.
His record bears comparison with some of the greats of the Irish game and his trophy collection with club and country is testament to his natural talent - Boys' international caps from 1974 to 1976 and wins in the Munster Boys (1974), the Leinster, Ulster and Midland Boys (all 1976) and the Irish Youths (1978) as well as the 1977 European Youths with Ireland.
With Castletroy, he was equally prolific, winning a string of pennants including the Aer Lingus Youths Club Championship in 1980 and the All Ireland Barton Shield in 1984 as well as 50 caps for Munster.
An honorary life member of Ballybunion and Castletroy, he passed away in University Hospital in Kerry on Monday after a long illness, prompting a wave of reminisces.
"If am reminiscing about golf, there are more stories about Tom Corridan than anybody else," his former Irish team mate Adrian Morrow said yesterday. "He was a gentle giant with the heart of a lion, giving the impression that he was this big, softy. But underneath, he would absolutely gut you and do it with clever guile.
"I played him in the quarter-finals of the 'Close' in Killarney in '83 and it's 80 degrees. I am dead, three down and going backwards and suddenly, Tom collapses in the middle of the fairway.
”I said, 'Tom are you alright? I don't want to win this way'. So Tom, who was breathing very heavily, said: 'Can you reach into my golf bag... and get me a fag?' You couldn't make it up.
"I pretend to root around the bag, purposely not finding the cigarettes. Eventually after letting two or three matches through, he beats me 7&6 and goes on to win the Close. That was Tommy."
His debut for Ireland in 1983 is the stuff of legend with his subtle psychological bustling of opponents proving too much for the likes of Scottish Walker Cup star George MacGregor.
"It's lashing rain and George, who is probably the best-known amateur in Britain and Ireland, is waiting on the tee looking like a million dollars, shoes you could see your face in.
"Tommy is in the locker room, a total mess, smoking a cigarette. And Mark Gannon says, 'Tom, for god's sake, you are off in four minutes!'
"'Let him wait,' said Tommy, who goes out with about 10 seconds to spare. It's still lashing. George sticks out his hands and says, ‘I'm George’. And Tom say, ‘George who?’”
"George later admitted to me that the incident threw him to such an extent that by the time he was over the shock, he was three down after five. Game over.
"His eating and drinking stories were legendary but when we won at Prestwick in 1992, the Scottish caddies were niggling Tommy all week to go drinking, saying, 'We'll get you'.
"Tommy promised to go drinking with them after we had won and when it was all over he came to me and said, 'Tell Eamonn Curran, I will not be at the dinner but I will arrive for the end', which was four hours away.
"At around 10 o'clock Tom arrives in the hotel with two caddies hanging out of him, both wasted after drinking 20 pints. Of course, there wasn't a bother on Tommy.”
The MacGregor incident wasn’t the only example of Tommy’s love of bustling, as Morrow recalled of that match at Prestwick.
“He was hooking everything and we were playing foursomes but he picked the odds or the evens, I can’t remember which and said, ‘Don’t worry, I have it worked out, if I miss every fairways 60 yards left, we are fine because I’ll be on another fairway. And it was true. And that’s how we played the course. In that same match, we are playing Scotland on the final day and on the third, I shanked a one-iron off a bridge 80 yards in front of the tee and the ball rebounds and finishes up near onto second green.
“Tommy said not to worry, to call a referee and claim line of sight for the bridge. ‘We’ll play with the Scottish guys’ heads’, he said. Anyway, the referee is 450 yards away and we have to let two matches through waiting for the ruling and of course, he says, forget it, get on with it. The Scots are going mad at this stage and we halve the hole in six. And win the next three. He was the most subtle bustler of all-time. He’d just play with your head.”
According to Ballybunion's 125th-anniversary history, he was introduced to the game as a caddie by his mother, Ann Teresa, aged seven before going on to win every provincial Boys title bar Connacht. As a Boys international from 1974 to 1976, he held his own against the likes of Ian Woosnam, Nick Faldo, Sandy Lyle, Martin Poxon and Mark Mouland though never finding their drive to aim for the professional game.
While attending college in Limerick, he had almost 'retired' from golf when a chance meeting with Henry Cotton while on holiday at Penina in Portugal in 1983 rekindled his interest. On returning to Ballybunion, Ted Higgins Snr got his game in shape, leading to that memorable Close win.
Castletroy's Aer Lingus All Ireland Youths Clubs Championship winning team of 1980 - L-R Hugh Mescall (team manager), Neil McGill, Tom Corridan, Brendan McDaid, Kieran Maher, John Kavanagh, John Harty (Captain, Castletroy GC).
"He came through the same era as Faldo and Lyle and he was every bit as good as them as a teenager only to drift away from the game, probably because he didn't have great players around him," Higgins said. "When he came to me, I was hard on him and I drove him. He was special. I don't think I've seen a better pair of hands on a golf club. Magnificent touch."
The leading amateur in the Irish Open in Killarney in 1992, he made many friends along the way.
"He was a rogue but a lovable rogue," said Lahinch's Pádraig McInerney, a life-long friend. "I remember staying with him during the Kerry Boys. Tommy and Willie Joe Buckley brought this Lahinch lad into a pub near Banna Beach and an hour later the two boys had six pints of Guinness drunk. I'll never forget it!”
His prodigious feats when it came to food and drink are the stuff of legend - three chickens at a sitting, catering tubs of ice cream and entire sliced pans of sandwiches would be consumed, solo, in front of ravenous team mates.
When asked if he would not be under the kosh on his return home, he would laugh.
“When she weighed me before we left, I had two seven-pound weights in my dressing gown pockets!” said Brendan McDaid, who played on that 1980 Aer Lingus winning team with Corridan at Castletroy.
”He was a gentleman, a lovely person. There wasn't a bad bone in that man's body. And he was a really good golfer with a lovely, slow, natural backswing and an incredible touch around the greens. He went for everything too. He'd remind you of Seve. He'd never worry about the one back."
Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dílis.
