Max Kennedy is delighted to be back on home soil as he fine tunes his preparations for the Irish Challenge at Killeen Castle, hoping that home advantage can provide the boost his chase for a DP World Tour card requires as the HotelPlanner Tour season enters the home stretch.
Having turned professional at the end of last year after coming desperately close to earning a full DP World Tour card at Q-School, the Dubliner – one of 14 Irish players teeing it up – is set to make his first professional appearance in his home country and being on the road has only served to heighten his appreciation for his native land.
“I’m from Ireland and I’m extremely proud to be Irish, and anytime I get to come back here is always amazing, you know, and the more I’m not in Ireland, the more I’m grateful for, for being Irish,” he said ahead of the event which starts on Thursday.
“So it’s it’s great to be back this week in such a great venue. Staying at home this week, about half an hour down the road just outside of Dublin, so very handy and hopefully that gives me, you know, a bit of luck going into this week.”
Kennedy grew up playing on the links of Royal Dublin on Bull Island, a mere 40 minutes from the County Meath venue which last hosted a professional event in 2012, and he’s expecting a strong turnout in support of all the homegrown players and a healthy portion of that to be from Royal Dublin itself.
And he enjoys performing in front of a crowd.
“Yeah, I think there’ll be a good bit of support this week, certainly from from my home club Royal Dublin,” he said. “There’s been a bit of talk about people coming down and supporting and stuff like that. So anytime in the past where that’s happened, I’ve played well, so hopefully I can thrive off that this week.”
In addition to the HotelPlanner Tour Road to Mallorca ranking points which become even more crucial as the countdown to the Rolex Grand Final continues, there’s the small matter of the Christy O’Connor Jnr Memorial Trophy which sees the leading Irish player awarded an invitation to the Amgen Irish Open at the K Club in September.
But despite all of the additional incentives, he contends that his goal is the same every time he tees it up, and that’s to get that first professional victory in the books.
“Yeah, it’s obviously one that I want to do well in, but in the grand scheme of things, you can’t really think of it as in ‘you want to do well this week’,” he explained. “It’s a process, you know, I’m obviously in to win. That’s my goal. That’s my ambition every single week, and it doesn’t change this week just because it’s at home and I get a lot of support and this, that and the other. I want to compete, I want to win every week, and that’s what I’m going to go out and try and do this week.”
From the back tees, Killeen Castle is one of the toughest golf courses anywhere and despite Kennedy’s love for the course, he expects scoring to be modest.
“Non-biased opinion, it’s got to be the best course we play this year,” he enthused. “Jack Nicklaus design and it’s just really difficult – there’s not an easy golf hole on the course, and if you play well, you might shoot two- or three-under, you know. I think the course record is two-under maybe. So that just shows you how how good of a test it is and how challenging it is.
“But I think that the players will enjoy the challenge this week and it’s set up to be to be one of the great events this year.”
In fact, as no men’s professional tournament has been held at Killeen Castle, the official tournament course record off the tips is 71 – one-under-par – and the honour held by an amateur, so the odds are good that a new course record will be set this week. To witness it, and to show your support for the venue and the 14 Irish players in attendance, you can avail of free tickets here.
