Caolan Rafferty is Ireland’s grand slam winner you don’t know

In April of last year, Rory McIlroy crumpled to the ground at Augusta National, having finally won the Masters to complete the career Grand Slam. Six months later, the Isle of Ireland got another slam winner — one who has no equal. While McIlroy, who is from Northern Ireland, was the sixth member to join professional golf’s most prestigious club, Caolan Rafferty — who is from Dundalk, Ireland — is the only amateur ever to complete the “Provincial Slam” by winning the North, South, East, and West of Ireland championships.

The list of legendary Irish amateurs is long. The names include McIlroy, Shane Lowry, Darren Clarke, Padraig Harrington, J.B. Carr, John Burke and Hugh Foley, among others. And yet many of the biggest names didn’t have the extended amateur run that Rafferty has had, as they eventually turned to professional golf. Clarke and Foley won three of the four legs of the Provincial before turning pro. Lowry won two.

But only Rafferty completed the “Compass of Ireland.”

“Being honest, it still hasn’t set in,” Rafferty told GOLF as he prepares to play in the Bridges Cup, a high-level mid-amateur event between U.S. and International squads. (GOLF’s holding company, 8AM Golf, hosts the event.) “It’s pretty cool to have my name on that. From an individual perspective, the Provincial Slam is the biggest [achievement], followed closely by playing in the Walker Cup.”

You might think that a man who etched his name in Irish amateur golf history has been tearing up the isle’s emerald fairways all his life. But that’s not Caolan Rafferty’s story.

He first started playing the game left-handed because his dad was left-handed. But his coach later had him switch to right-handed, and he was off, playing the game because he loved it and it filled his soul. It was a rare joy that Rafferty didn’t want to lose. But he admits he did. In his own words, he was “rubbish” at boys’ golf. He had a temper, and at times his game didn’t live up to his expectations. He hung up his clubs for a bit when he was 18, unsure if he was going to pick them back up.

“I always wanted to play golf for the enjoyment level,” Rafferty says. “It was never initially set out to be a career, and definitely not to get to maybe where I did at the current date. But it was always something I just wanted to be part of. When I got a little bit better, I thought I was Tiger Woods for a while, and I clearly wasn’t. But that’s kind of the way things go, I suppose. I kind of just put a lot of pressure on myself and was getting angry on the course, and wasn’t enjoying golf. Just expectation levels in this game. We always expect too much out of ourselves, and at that time, that was the biggest drawback for me.”

But he missed golf. So he picked it back up, promising to enjoy it whether he was competing or just going for an evening stroll. Rafferty vowed that his golf would be guided by a simple but effective motto that speaks to the soul of the amateur game: “Hit it, find it, hit it again, and if you can’t find it, drop another one and hit it. Just enjoy it. The pressure isn’t helping anyone.”

Rafferty fell back in love with the game, and it sparked an impressive amateur run that is still going 11 years later. It has seen him play in the 2019 Walker Cup, the 2020 Palmer Cup, tee it up at a U.S. Amateur and win the Provincial Slam. While Rafferty’s name stands alongside some giants in the history of Irish amateur golf, he didn’t follow in their footsteps toward the professional game. After making the 2019 Walker Cup team, Rafferty, who was at Maynooth University, had the choice between pursuing professional aspirations and taking a different path. A lot went into the decision: he wanted to finish his degree, the Covid-19 pandemic shuttered the sport and Rafferty saw how hard it was for some of his friends trying to grind their way up the developmental tours.

In the end, he wanted his relationship with the game that has given him so much to stay where it was and has been since he picked the clubs back up.

“I think when you’re looking at it from a point of view of it’s going to start putting food on the table each week and it’s going to be the only way of income, that changes things,” Rafferty says. “Obviously, pressure was always going to build, and as I say, I always wanted to enjoy the game. That was my biggest thing, and still to this day is now: enjoy as much as I can. Obviously, we still get frustrated, and we might throw the odd club and give ourselves a good talking over. But in general, it’s definitely just been more relaxed and kind of just play the game for what the game is. And amateur golf has got so many opportunities nowadays, and obviously with connections and different things, it opens a lot of doors.”

While Rafferty was deciding whether or not the professional grind was for him, he fell in love with greenskeeping at Dundalk Golf Club. That job gave him the freedom to sneak away from work to play tournaments representing the club. But, as Rafferty says, “we have to keep progressing” in life. So he moved on from greenskeeping and got a job as a club fitter for Ping. That job involves more travel than greenskeeping, which means he has had to get better at balancing his job, his family and his love of golf. It has been a juggling act, but it’s one Rafferty has gotten good at as the amateur game continues to give him opportunities he never dreamed of.

The next one will come at the Bridges Cup at Trump Turnberry Oct. 5-7, where Rafferty will play for an International team looking to be the first to knock off the three-time defending champion Americans. The premier mid-amateur event is one Rafferty is thrilled to be teeing it up in as he looks to get some revenge after his loss at the 2019 Walker Cup.

“I owe the Americans a little one back after the Walker Cup, so I have a little bit between my teeth for this one,” Rafferty said with a chuckle. “The thing I love about it is it’s such a social, relaxed gathering as well as competitive golf. And look, that’s what we want. I’ve only heard good things [about the Bridges Cup]. Competitive team golf is very, very hard to beat and [captain Simon Holt] has us geared up and ready to go.”

More than a decade ago, Caolan Rafferty stopped loving golf. It spoke to him again and sparked an impressive amateur run — one that will continue at the Bridges Cup — that has his name standing alone among Irish amateur greats.

“It just shows that there is something there,” Rafferty said of his amateur success. “I always say that you never realize how good you are yourself. Everyone can tell you how good you are, but I suppose when I sit back to look at what I’ve done and see what everyone else is doing around me, you kind of have been one of the names that people will hopefully talk about in a good way for forever in time.”