When Pádraig Harrington was a 15-year-old amateur, he told his dad he needed to talk to a certain reporter, whereupon his dad said, 'that man is not a reporter; he's a golf writer, a journalist.' That writer was Dermot Gilleece, one of the foremost golfing correspondents of his generation.
A Farewell to the Fairways is a reflection on Gilleece's 63 years of golf writing for Ireland's national newspapers. From his first piece of journalism in 1960 on a play-off for the Hospital Sweeps Tournament at Woodbrook, won by Christy O'Connor Snr, to being honoured by the Irish Golf Writers Association upon his retirement in 2023, Gilleece has seen and written about it all.
Over the decades he has covered all major golfing events, including the Masters, Open and PGA Championships, and the Dunhill and Ryder Cups, interviewing the game's top players, such as Jack Nicklaus, Seve Ballesteros, Arnold Palmer and Tiger Woods. He has written extensively about leading Irish exponents of the game, like the O'Connors Senior and Junior, McIlroy, Harrington, Clarke, Lowry, McDowell, McGinley, Walton, Rafferty and, of course, Leona Maguire. He also covered the profound changes that have impacted the sport over the past half-century, such as equality for women golfers, the formation of Golf Ireland and the rise of LIV Golf.
A Farewell to the Fairways is essential reading for anyone with an interest in sports writing and the development of golf over the past 60+ years.
