The Na Madrai Golf Society was founded in 1996 in Dungarvan Golf Club, County Waterford, Ireland over a pint of the black stuff after a golf day in memory of a good friend of The Spotted Dog, Mick Lewis.

A bunch of embarrassed hackers, Grahame Murray, Phil McDonald, Graham Daly, Carmel Boyle (Caddie), Terry ‘The Bishop’ Devenny and Ian Clueit (who incidentally only played the 19th hole!), thought their golf needed improving and regular play would achieve this. It was also flamed by the sudden realisation that active sport was no longer an option for most.

In the early years until 2001 golf was organised informally under the banner of The Spotted Dog and participation gradually increased to a regular twenty at each event. This created interest among others in and around The Spotted Dog and led to a recognition that it could no longer be sorted over a pint on a Friday night and a quick call to any golf course the following morning. Organisation, not a strong point of regular players up until then, was required. So, at the start of 2002 we became a “proper” society under the stewardship of Tom Gallagher our first secretary, chairman, treasurer, handicap secretary et al.

In April that year fifteen players took part in our first Major, the Na Madrai Open. Two other inaugural Majors were played that year, The Jaffa O’Ryder Cup, which was already an established social fixture and the Birmingham Irish Masters. In 2004 we added the Mick Lewis/Tommy Doran memorial to our Major competitions. We were now up there with the professionals having four majors each year to play for. In 2007 we went one better with five, splitting the latter into two to differentiate between the living and the dead. Tom also established a committee with some volunteer members taking a little of the weight off his shoulders.

Graham Daly took up the reins from Tom in 2006, establishing more events and introducing a more civilised approach with food to go with the drink afterwards and in February 2007 established what is now an annual pre season tournament requiring several layers of clothing to keep us warm

Our current secretary Darren Clueit, who took over during 2007, is building on the great beginnings and progress delivered by Tom and Graham, making proper branded golf dress available to us all (how to make bad golfers look good!) and extending our reach worldwide through this website.

Tom’s contribution was recognised at the start of 2007 when he became our first and so far only, life member.

As of 30 September 2009 we have thirty nine full members and several associate members. More than thirty entrants participate in our Major competitions, with aspirations to achieve forty this year and one hundred and three different people from all corners of the globe have taken part in a Na Madrai Golf Society event since 2002. To fill the gap between Major competitions, Minor-Major competitions are also organised. These tend to be a less formal affair but non-the-less just as competitive!

Since the early 90’s a group of regulars from the Spotted Dog have made a Whitsun trip to Ireland, initially to play Rugby and discuss what went wrong late into the night at a local hostelry. Since the turn of the century this has evolved into a golf weekend with similar conversations at the bar. The highlight of this evolution was our now official Na Madrai Golf Society attending the 10th and last Mick Lewis Memorial Golf Day at Dungarvan Golf Club in 2006 where our founder members conducted a tour, while seated, of where it had all began. We had come full circle and our future was secure.

We are now setting our sights even higher with plans to celebrate our centenary as a proper golf society (that’s 10 years in Spotted Dog years!) in 2011 with some special events.

Remember how we used to plan the night before!!