Late June, 2001 and the Murphy’s Irish Open is taking place for a first time in Cork in the very south of Ireland.

It’s the eight different host venue since the relaunch in 1975, and after 22-year break, of Ireland’s premier event.

The first Irish Open I attended was in 1993 at Mt. Juliet and where Nick Faldo won a third straight Irish Open title after having finished first in both 1991 and 1992 at Killarney Golf and Fishing club.

The Fota Island club is to the east to east of Cork while 13 kilometres towards the south-east is the town of Cobh (Gaelic word meaning ‘cove’ in English).

Cobh is famous as it was the last port of call for the Titanic.  The ill-fated liner, and on its maiden voyage, collected a further 123 passengers from the town then known as Queenstown.  Of those who boarded the Titanic on the 11th April, 1912 only 44 survived the sinking that resulted in more than 1,500 dead.

The ill-fated Titanic leaving Cobh on 11th April, 1912.

I had long been fascinated by the Titanic having read many books and watched also on many occasions the 1958 movie ‘A Night to Remember’ so given the close proximity of Cobh to Cork myself and a few of my journalistic colleagues chose to stay for the week in Cobh.

Besides, Cobh looked lively being full of restaurants and bars while there was the spectacle of the harbour and reminders of the Titanic.

Cobh has long been a cruise ship town and well before the Titanic proceeded down the harbour and out into the Atlantic Ocean but during the week of the 2001 Irish Open a guided-missile American destroyer named the USS Ross was berthed in the same spot where those boarding Titanic had departed for their ship 90-years earlier.

The destroryer USS Ross in Cobh harbour during the week of the 2001 Murphy’s Irish Open.   Photo – Bernie McGuire

A photograph I found of the USS Ross, and taken that week by myself, is above.

We chose a B & B to stay that week and with the owner, and just like all the Irish, so welcoming and friendly.

As is usual, it was an early start with a traditional Irish hot breakfast and then off to the tournament before making our way back early evening and heading into town for a bite to eat and a few pints.

We did this without fail at almost every tournament I covered on the European Tour and it also just added so much to the camaraderie.  The players would do the same and so too the caddies and Tour officials.  I quickly learnt why Europe was so good at winning the Ryder Cup.   Yes, it was skill with the golf club but that ‘one big family’ like bonding among the Europeans was so much the victory key.  You simply just did not have that in the States.

And talking of families, the woman who owned the B & B where we stayed had two teenage daughters.  I am not sure of their age but suffice to say mum helped give their age away in sitting down with us one evening that week in June.

We were talking in general about the delight in being in Cobh and the subject of the USS Ross came up.

The woman stopped us mid sentence to declare:  “As long as that American warship is tied-up in Cobh, there is no way my daughters are leaving this house”.

It is a remark naturally I have not forgotten while I have loved telling the tale all these years on.

The week ended on a good note as Scotland’s Colin Montgomerie won his third Irish Open by five shots making for a page lead in the Daily Record.

Bernie standing on the 1st tee at Old Head and the day following the 2001 Irish Open at Fota Island.

Putting out in June 2001 at Old Head with the splendor of the Atlantic Ocean as a backdrop.

The next day I joined Phil Reid (Irish Times), Norman Dabell (Reuters) and Brian Creighton (Associated Press) enjoying the good fortune to play the famed Old Head course for a first time, and with the couse only been opened just four-years earlier in 1997.

Old Head commands stunning views of Cobh harbour and the mighty expanse of the Altantic Ocean.

And here on this bright and sunny Monday morning was the sight of the USS Ross steaming up the harbour and bound for home after having been in northern European waters for some six weeks.

Brian Creighton, Phil Reid, Bernie and Norman Dabell on the Old Head course in June 2001.

Bernie on the final tee at the Old Head in June 2001.

In checking with Wikipedia the USS Ross was then on 16th  October 2001 deployed to the Mediterranean Sea and Persian Gulf in support of ‘Operation Enduring Freedom’, and conducting operations in support of the U.N. resolutions against Iraq.

But as the Ross made it’s way into the Atlantic I mentioned to the group that the two daughters of the owner of the B & B where we had stayed in Cobh will be finally allowed to leave the house.

We all broke out laughing.