It’s 11am on the hottest day of the year when Ned Power pulls into the drive of the family farmhouse in Doon, flustered by the heat and non-stop calls to his mobile.
“Séamus was meant to be here at 1pm, but his plane has been delayed for whatever reason,” he says.
“I don’t know if it just needs a push or what, but hopefully it makes it over the water. ‘Twas far from private jets he was reared.”
Last January, while on a junket, Séamus Power’s sponsors promised him anything he wanted if he could deliver a major tournament win. His wish? To be flown back to west Waterford.
Séamus (back row, third from left) lines out earlier in his career with other amateur golfers – including a young Rory McIlroy (seated, second from left)
Séamus (back row, third from left) lines out earlier in his career with other amateur golfers – including a young Rory McIlroy (seated, second from left)
On Wednesday evening that wish was granted as he arrived on home soil for the first time in over a year after becoming the sixth Irish golfer to win a PGA Tour title.
Just a couple of hours after edging out JT Poston on the sixth play-off hole in the Barbasol Championship, he phoned his father Ned.
“I told him to win a bit more comfortably the next time as my ticker’s not able, I’m lucky to be alive,” he said.
After a morning speaking to friends and family it is immediately apparent they aren’t the type of people who will let the $630,000 win go to his head.
“What a stupid question,” his uncle Pat quips when asked if he’s proud of his nephew. “Of course I am. He’s a great guy.”
Locals in Tooraneena painted a picture of an unassuming young man who could have played at the highest level in any sport.
Séamus Power after winning the final round of the Barbasol Championship in Kentucky. Photo: Andy Lyons/ Getty Images
Some admitted to “not knowing a lot about golf”, while others mourned the fact he’s not wearing the blue and white of the Waterford senior hurling team, like his cousin Kieran Power.
“He was home here about three or four years ago and we were on the local GAA pitch and I reminded him how he had put the sliotar over the bar at the other end of the field many a time, and I challenged him to do the same with a golf club and ball,” said JP Walsh, who runs a garage just down the road from where Seamus grew up.
“He put it straight over the black line on the crossbar.”
His hand-eye co-ordination was the stuff of local legend from a young age.
When he was 11 years old, he was in the top 10 racquetball players in the world, winning a bronze world championship medal. He’s ambidextrous and can hit a ball 300 yards, left or right.
It’s safe to say that the 34-year-old’s rise to golfing fame has come as little surprise to those who know him. Members of West Waterford Golf Club, in Dungarvan, described him as “highly competitive”. His father preferred the term “sore loser”.
“He is never happy with second. I was playing Texas hold ’em poker with him the last time he was home for Christmas and he’d have the odds worked out in his head because he’s very good with numbers, but I beat him playing the old-school way and he was savage after it.”
All joking aside, he speaks about his son with the kind of admiration any child would want from a parent.
“He was an incredibly easy child to rear. Séamus gets on well with everybody, there’s no codology or looking down on people,” he said.
Standing in the sunshine outside the house where he raised Séamus and his older twin brothers, Jack and Willie, Ned shared a photo of the boys with their late mother Philomena, better known locally as ‘Philo’.
She died from cancer in 1995 when Séamus was just eight years old. The year before, the Powers won RTÉ’s ‘Family of the Year’ for their contribution to the Tooraneena community, where they played a major helping hand in starting the local creche and community centre.
Three years after his mother’s death, Séamus took up golf.
Nobody in the family had a background in golf, although Ned had worked as a waiter at a well-known Dublin golf club in his younger days.
“I’d always found the people a bit snobby. Some of them wouldn’t even give you a six-pence tip,” he said.
He praised the current batch of professional Irish golfers, describing them as “down to earth lads”.
“The first thing Lowry (Shane Lowry) would say to me is: ‘Well, Ned, how are the cows?’”
Ned owned a 100-acre farm in Doon and raised cattle and sheep for much of his life. The returns were modest, and he took on a second job at Boston Scientific in Clonmel, laser-welding defibrillators, so he could pay for Séamus to attend junior events across Ireland.
Ned’s hard work paid off: in 2005, Power won the Irish Youths Championship on his home course aged 19.
Denis Herlihy, vice-captain of West Waterford Golf Club, recalled: “He played the most difficult hole on the course and he was the one who consistently birdied it every time. It wasn’t a fluke – that came from years of practice.”
At the entrance to West Waterford is a sign with pictures of Power and fellow professional golfer Gary Hurley. It reads: “Séamus and Gary started here, members to stay here.”
Power left Ireland to study accounting at East Tennessee State University in the US and has spent almost half his life across the water. His father said he was offered several scholarships at Irish universities, but he was adamant about going to a college with a golf academy.
On Wednesday night, Power visited the Park Hotel, in Dungarvan, where he met with his friend and fellow pro Hurley.
Hurley shared a photo of the pair on Instagram, with the caption: “Park Hotel Dungarvan or Casa Amor?”
His dad said he’d often ask him for advice about women issues, but he probably wouldn’t recommend going on Love Island.
“We have the sort of relationship where we can talk about anything, serious and not serious.
“He’s a great lad and we’re all very proud of him.”
