LISFANNON, IRELAND | In the cozy and well-appointed clubhouse bar and lounge – with every wall that isn’t a window overlooking Lough Swilly covered in pictures and crests and trophies – one item stands out. It is the only artifact with its own light source illuminating it, a sort of shrine within the shrine that is North West Golf Club’s clubhouse.
“Who is that?” I asked, pointing at the portrait across the room in the lofted area opposite the bar.
“That’s our most famous member,” said Jimmy McFadden, the current club president.
Stepping up for closer inspection, I immediately recognized the face. “Brian McElhinney,” the placard read. “Irish International, North of Ireland Champion and European Champion, 2003.”
“I know him,” I said to McFadden. “I met him at the Georgia Cup before he played in the Masters.”
“Yes,” said McFadden, “he’s downstairs in the pro shop. He’s our head pro.”
That’s not something many clubs can claim, that its head professional is a former competitor in the Masters as well as a pair of Open Championships. McElhinney – who grew up playing North West and nearby Buncrana Golf Club – won the 2005 British Amateur, earning an invitation to compete at Augusta National in 2006. He was the first golfer from the Republic of Ireland to win the Amateur Championship since the late Joe Carr in 1960, and he’s the only golfer from County Donegal to ever tee it up at the Masters.
“The only thing I had known about Augusta was what I had seen on TV,” McElhinney once told the Donegal Daily. “I never thought that I’d have the chance to play there. It was unreal. What a great experience it was.”
McElhinney grew up playing all the traditional Irish sports and happened upon golf following his father to the course when he was 11. Hitting a few shots here and there morphed into junior memberships at Buncrana and eventually North West, and his athletic instincts took over. “Took to it quite well, naturally, you know,” he said. “Just progressed from there.”
The first big event he won was the Donegal Boys and got picked for the Irish International team that same year at age 17. His game flourished, rallying to win both the North of Ireland Championship at Royal Portrush and European Amateur at Nairn, Scotland, at 21 in 2003.
The latter earned him a spot in the 2004 British Open, for which he was given a hero’s welcome back to North West. “You’d hardly have got walking through the place, it was so full,” he said of the reception.
By then he was partnering foursomes matches for Ireland and Ulster with a young 14-year-old named Rory McIlroy, winning two and a half out of three points in youth interpros and rooming with the lad in the Irish panels.
“He just hit the ball so pure and so straight for somebody so small and so young,” McElhinney recalls. “You just knew there’s some kind of special about him.”
McElhinney won the British Amateur in 2005, beating Edoardo Molinari, James Moul, Oliver Fisher and John Gallagher en route to the title that booked him a return to the Open, a spot on the Walker Cup team and his trip to the Masters the next spring.
“I knew I’d never get an opportunity like that again in a final to win a British Amateur title; that was in the back of my head the whole time,” he told the Donegal Daily of what was at stake. “When I started playing golf I never thought there’d be any chance to play the Walker Cup, two British Opens or the Masters. It’s just unbelievable, really.”
That also got him a spot in a lesser known tradition of competing against the reigning U.S. Amateur champion in a match at the Golf Club of Georgia in Alpharetta in the Georgia Cup. McElhinney faced Italy’s Edoardo Molinari in 2006, reprising their matchup in the prior year’s Amateur Championship at Royal Birkdale, which McElhinney won 1-up.
“It’s probably the ideal opportunity to have, you know, to be the club professional at the club you grew up playing at.” – Brian McElhinney
The rematch was pretty memorable because of the beautiful incongruity of it all.
“Here was an Irishman representing the British and an Italian representing the United States following a Scottish bagpiper off the first tee while a few retired Southern executives held up placards imploring ‘Y’all HUSH!’ to untethered spectators,” was the scene as described in The Augusta Chronicle that April.
Molinari – who would eventually go on to represent Europe in a Ryder Cup along with his younger brother, Francesco – put up less of a fight on a perfectly cloudless Wednesday afternoon a week before they’d both debuted in the Masters. The quietly efficient McElhinney – dubbed “The Terminator” by his Irish golf teammates for his singles match prowess – jumped out to a 3-up lead on the front nine and held on to win, 3 and 2.
A week later he shot scores of 80 and 75 playing with Tom Watson and Michael Campbell at the Masters. He spent a night in the Crow’s Nest, played a practice round with Pádraig Harrington and Paul McGinley and enjoyed the Par 3 Contest. His first introduction playing Augusta National in a practice round still resonates, as he missed a birdie putt over the edge of the cup and watched his ball roll off the green.
“Welcome to Augusta,” said his caddie.
The Masters experience marked the end of McElhinney’s amateur career and the start of his journey back to the register in the modest pro shop at North West. He turned professional, accepted a few exemptions into European Tour events and played the rest of 2006 on the Challenge Tour (his best finish a tie for 12th at the Ryder Cup Wales Challenge) before failing to advance through Euro Tour Q-School.
From there he set out for five seasons on the developmental EuroPro Tour, where he won twice – the 2007 Oceanico Group Irish Classic at Roganstown and the 2008 Sureshot Classic at The Shire in London. But he could never gain any traction trying to advance to the Euro Tour.
“I just found that the game wasn’t good enough to basically be able to progress onto the main tour,” McElhinney said. “I felt as if I wanted to be involved with golf, so I started the PGA training.”
By 2015 he was certified and was a steady contender in PGA in Ireland and regional play, winning consistently – including the PGA Irish Club Professional and Irish PGA Assistants championships in 2013.
North West first employed him to work in the shop a few days a week and shortly after the pandemic started he took the reins as head professional at his home course where he held the course record of 6-under 64 before the links was changed in recent years.
“There are advantages: you know the club; you know the members; obviously, it’s close to home as well,” McElhinney said. “It worked out quite well from that point of view. It’s probably the ideal opportunity to have, you know, to be the club professional at the club you grew up playing at.”
Though he hadn’t competed much during COVID-19 and while trying to get his legs under him running the teaching programs and shop operations at North West, the Terminator can still play a little at age 40. In August, he competed in the 112th Irish PGA Championship at Carne and shot rounds of 69, 70 and 71 to finish runner-up after Damien McGrane pipped him to the post with three birdies in the last five holes.
“I had no real expectations to finish maybe as well as I did,” McElhinney said. “To shoot three under-par rounds, it felt quite good being able to do that not playing a lot of competitive golf this year.”
With two daughters ages 7 and 4, McElhinney is satisfied with the security his job in the game gives him.
“No, I’m quite content at the moment,” he said. “It’s keeping me busy, the role, especially in the summer months there’s a lot quite a lot to it regarding the shop and in coaching programs for members and juniors. Obviously going forward, I’d like to play a wee bit more in the region maybe going into next year when can things settle down a little bit more in the shop just to have my bearings a wee bit more.”
With experiences that have put his name above the pro shop door as well as the place of honor in the clubhouse, McElhinney remains the brightest star of Ireland’s North West.