They walked off the fifth green on the Killeen Course; Ireland were facing Denmark in a crunch European Amateur Team Championship semi-final and the conversation surrounded what language occupied his thoughts.
Ireland’s Gavin Tiernan took on Dane Oscar Valdemar Holm Bredkjaer in the second of the crucial afternoon singles matches at Killarney Golf & Fishing Club, with a place in the final at stake.
The Irish would later succumb to an agonising 4-3 defeat and in the heat of battle, Tiernan sought to cut the tension in his own way.
He studies Psychology at East Tennessee State University and at this week’s Walker Cup at Cypress Point Club in Pebble Beach, he will need to delve deep into that measured mindset.
While for a few fleeting moments in the Kerry summer sun, he allowed his mind to wander.
Gavin Tiernan celebrates one of his wins at The Amateur Championship. Photo: Oisin Keniry / The R&A
“I try to be curious,” said Tiernan who is the latest product of Golf Ireland’s High Performance programme.
“Obviously, that was pretty funny, I was genuinely curious because his English was very good, so I was like, does he think in English or translate? There’s a guy in our team who’s from Denmark but he thinks in English because he’s speaking English for so long.
“When I’m in between shots, I let my mind wander wherever it wants. I’m not trying to get ahead of myself in terms of performance but because I’m trying to be so relaxed on the course, I let my mind drift away from golf.
“Then once I get into it and up to the ball, that’s when it starts, your mind starts to narrow back in, and you don’t need to think about it.
“It’s so natural, when you get up to the ball, you start looking at where the pin is, how the ball is sitting, the wind direction and line.
“That’s just from playing so much and practicing, it becomes natural.”
It has been a phenomenal rise over the past 15 months, which began with a brilliant T6 finish at the Flogas Irish Men’s Amateur Open Championship in County Sligo in May.
He began that week with a blistering 65 and by the end of four rounds, the teenager had a World Amateur Golf Ranking. Tiernan went Stateside in the autumn for college and after a consistent campaign he closed it out with three top 20 finishes.
He was primed for an even better summer and didn’t disappoint, finishing third in the East of Ireland on his home course in Baltray. It was where he learned the game, with his grandfather Eddie Kelly his inspiration to choose golf over GAA.
“We’re a big GAA family. Never really were into golf, my granddad played but my family would have been big in Parnell’s in Dublin, and I’ve played for Sylvester’s my last few years,” said Tiernan.
“My granddad lives by Baltray, we have a mobile home up there. He played a lot of golf and used to have clubs sitting by the back door, and we’d be in the house all the time, so as a kid, just curious picking up the club and swinging it.
“He’d be like, oh the swing’s actually pretty good, and then he’d bring me up and just was hooked.”
Gavin Tiernan in action during The Amateur Championship. Photo: Oisin Keniry / The R&A
Tiernan is from north Dublin, and his family live near the airport in Kinsealy but County Louth has been his club since he was eight.
And after a sixth-place finish at the Connacht Men’s Stroke Play, Tiernan had plenty of support cheering him on when he got to Royal St George’s for The Amateur Championship at the end of June.
He was one of three Irish players who advanced to the Last 32 and while Stuart Grehan and Joshua Hill both lost, he defeated Niall Shiels Donegan.
He beat Jarno Tollenaire in the Last 16 and Gaspar Glaudas in the following round before a brilliant 1up win against Richard Teder. Tiernan took that momentum into the semi-finals and a 4&3 victory over Riccardo Fantinelli followed.
That put him in a decider against USA star, Ethan Fang, and although Tiernan was 2 down with three holes remaining, he rallied spectacularly. Two huge putts dropped and despite losing on the final hole, he had made his statement to the golfing world.
“When you look back, it’s fairly mad. It’s a pretty crazy year,” said Tiernan.
“There wasn’t that much going on last year. I tweaked my swing a bit and changed my ball flight to where it would be a lot more consistent. A mix of that and just getting better at golf and scoring, and also getting better mentally.”
East Tennessee State University Golf Head Coach, Aaron O’Callaghan, welcomed Dublin-based performance nutritionist Daniel Davey over to speak to his players.
There he linked up with Tiernan for the first time and the man who has worked with the Dublin senior footballers and Leinster Rugby, was the inspiration for his change from Economics to Psychology.
“I improved in so many ways since Christmas. That’s when I started to make a few of these changes and it’s easy to get wrapped up because golf is such an endless cycle, you’re constantly trying to get better and sometimes you take it for granted and don’t give yourself credit,” said Tiernan.
“Working with Daniel has made my decision because I’m just so fascinated by it because the conversations we have, and then it was really just when I started helping other people, I was like, Jesus this feels so good. I absolutely love it.”
Heading into one of the biggest weekends of his life at the Walker Cup, Tiernan can look back fondly on 16 to 21 June when everything changed.
His fledgling career was trending in the right direction but that week he really showed the culmination of all of his hard work.
“Sometimes you need to step back and be like, well done, you made a lot of progress, but that still doesn’t change how I approach anything. I take it day by day and try to get a little bit better every day,” said Tiernan.
“Obviously the experience in the Am was unbelievable. The game was always there. I had that belief I could do it, that I could compete at the highest level and then playing that gives you the validation.
“When you play against the best players, it gives you that confidence, it’s not that far away, and sometimes you’re like, maybe I’m better than I thought. I feel my potential and ceiling is higher than a lot of these guys, which is a nice feeling. It gives you inner confidence.
“I made a few sloppy mistakes in the final, just a bit of nerves, and tried to start at the back nine and be a little easy on myself. You’re human as well, you can make these mistakes and I caught myself thinking a bit about that too much.
“Then when I got to 16, I was like, well, you’re 2 down, if you’re going to make something happen, this is the time, you should do it and then I had a really nice read on 16, it was breaking half-a-foot left to right at the start, and then it was going to straighten at the end, and it did exactly that, went right in the middle.
“Then 17 again, he actually had a poor pitch on 17, I was like, I’m just going to close the door on him here and knock it in, which I did, which was nice.
“Then flushed it down 18 but he hit an unreal shot, so what can you do.”
