![\"Mary](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/5213830_1_articleinline_a6b5a8a2780d4c71aa2b7808df669c4e.jpg\" "\\"Mary")
Mary Bergin with her daughter Claire <\/p>\nWhen Mary Bergin looks back at the start of her golfing journey, it is hard to believe how far the game has taken her.<\/p>\n
There was no grand plan when she first picked up a club.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The decision to begin playing was born out of a desire to be involved.<\/p>\n
For years, Bergin and her husband Maurice attended a hotel conference where a round of golf would take place before the event got underway. While he headed out to play some of Ireland\u2019s finest courses, she was left behind in their hotel room.<\/p>\n
\u201cI said I can do that,\u201d said Bergin.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere’d be beautiful courses like Mount Juliet and Killarney and I’d be sitting in the hotel room, and my husband would go out and play golf.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy am I sitting in a hotel room when I could be out playing golf?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mary Bergin with her daughter Claire <\/p>\n
More than three decades later, that moment has led Bergin from the fairways of Cobh and Monkstown to Golf Ireland\u2019s Munster office, national championships, and this week, the AIG Women\u2019s Junior Cup All-Ireland Finals at Millicent.<\/p>\n
Bergin has been part of the Monkstown Junior Cup panel for nine years.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Now, alongside her teammates Niamh Clohessy, Elayne Hickey, Hilary Harte, Susan O\u2019Sullivan, Vanessa Fitzgerald, Una Hegarty, Aisling McDonald and team captain Ralph Hosford, she will travel to Millicent hoping Monkstown make history.<\/p>\n
The Cork club has never won the AIG Women\u2019s Junior Cup in its 118-year history, with this week marking the first occasion they will make an appearance at the All-Ireland quarter-final stage.<\/p>\n
Bergin\u2019s own route into golf began in Dublin, where she grew up in Goatstown in a family with a golfing connection. Her mother played at Elm Park, although her own sporting interests initially lay elsewhere.<\/p>\n
\u201cI grew up listening to golf and in a golfing background,\u201d said Bergin.<\/p>\n
\u201cI played a lot of sports in school, hockey, netball, badminton, squash, all that type of thing.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
After moving to Cork in the mid-nineties and following her husband on to the fairways, she took lessons from Morgan O\u2019Donovan at Harbour Point before joining Cobh, initially wanting to dip her toe in the water. It wasn\u2019t long before she dove straight in.<\/p>\n
When an opportunity arose to join Monkstown, which was closer to home, she made the move in 2001 arriving as a 26-handicapper.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were very welcoming in Monkstown,\u201d said Bergin.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was a 26-handicapper, but I was a good 26-handicapper so I was instantly put on teams and the experience was very good.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really enjoyed playing golf. I started to play a lot and I came down quite quickly and started playing championships.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Intermediate, Junior Cup, Senior Cup, Senior Foursomes and Mixed team competitions would follow, while in 2007 she was a part of the Monkstown team that reached the All-Ireland finals of the National Mixed Foursomes.<\/p>\n
Her commitment to her newfound love was so strong, that even running a guest house could not keep her away from the course.<\/p>\n
\u201cI used to divert the work phone to my phone and take reservations and bookings while I was playing golf, hoping I wouldn\u2019t double book,\u201d said Bergin.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never lost a booking and never double booked. It was the only way I could get out to play.\u201d The more Bergin became involved in the game, the more she wanted to give back.<\/p>\n
A former hotel manager who worked in South Africa, London and Ireland, she spent years working in a demanding industry where finding time for volunteering was difficult. When her three daughters grew up, she finally had the time.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always felt that you should give something back,\u201d said Bergin.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love being involved in a team and organisations. When I was in working in the hotel business, you couldn’t do anything like that because it was very hard work.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf sport gives you something, you should give it back if you can.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bergin has volunteered with Golf Ireland since 2015, first representing Monkstown on the ILGU before taking up a role as Chair of Tournaments and now as Munster Regional Secretary.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"Mary](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/5213833_1_articleinline_b6edfede6fe74ecfa72b2f4bc414976d.jpg\" "\\"Mary")
Mary Bergin and the Monkstown\u2019s AIG Women\u2019s Junior Cup team<\/p>\n
She has also served Monkstown in several roles, including handicap secretary, involvement with competitions, the club\u2019s annual Ladies\u2019 show and is currently secretary of the club committee.<\/p>\n
She has also managed teams across Intermediate, Mixed and Junior Cup competitions.<\/p>\n
One of the highlights of her involvement with the club came through a Get into Golf programme where she managed around 60 new players.<\/p>\n
For Bergin those numbers are about more than just growing female membership.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They represent people finding the same sense of belonging that she found when she first stepped through the doors.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love the community spirit,\u201d said Bergin.<\/p>\n
\u201cI see it in some of the women in Monkstown when they get widowed. The next thing, they\u2019re all in, they\u2019re all flocking around the new widow and bringing her around for coffee. They mind each other.\u201d That sense of community is one of the reasons Bergin remains passionate about golf and why she believes the connection between clubs and Golf Ireland is so important.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would like to see going forward that we keep the connection between Golf Ireland and the clubs,\u201d said Bergin.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re there, we\u2019re visible, we\u2019re talking, we make them see that we\u2019re there for them.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe clubs have voted for us, so we’re there for them.\u201d Her own experiences in playing and running events has given her an appreciation of the new generation of players coming through.<\/p>\n
She fondly remembers meeting Katie Poots, Olivia Costello and Anna Abom early in their amateur careers and has enjoyed watching them flourish.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo see the young people coming up and to see from where they started to where they are now is great,\u201d said Bergin.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo see Katie doing so well now is amazing. Olivia, she played in Castletroy in the Munster championship, and she was nine years of age and to see her so committed even at that age was amazing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Anna as well, she played in Tipperary in the Munster championship and she was so quiet and so mannerly and to stand up on the tee box and whack it down I said oh my god.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Her passion for the game has also been passed down to her children. Bergin\u2019s three daughters, Claire, Sarah and Ciara, who like their mother have been involved in a number of sports, also played junior golf when the family would take holidays in Blainroe.<\/p>\n
Her eldest, Claire, joined Monkstown two years ago and recently represented the club in the Women\u2019s Challenge with her proud mother on the bag throughout the event.<\/p>\n
For Bergin, the connection between generations of families is one of golf\u2019s greatest strengths.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a sport that a mother or granny and a daughter can play,\u201d said Bergin \u201cYou can go out at any level because of the handicap system, and you can play together. Very few sports have that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Now the focus turns back to Monkstown and the AIG Women\u2019s Junior Cup.<\/p>\n
The panel has put in the work, with the players having travelled to Millicent several times to familiarise themselves with the course and preparations have been going well as they look forward to a massive week.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a huge buzz around the club,\u201d said Bergin.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe girls have been fantastic with their commitment for practice and to play in the Junior Cup. There\u2019s a great team spirit which we haven\u2019t had in the junior section for a while.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bergin will travel as part of the eight strong squad and although she has been involved with Junior Cup panels for almost a decade, this time there is an extra feeling of excitement as they prepare for a potentially historic occasion.<\/p>\n
When Monkstown defeated reigning champions Tipperary in the Munster East area final, Bergin was thousands of miles away in Saudi Arabia after the birth of her grandchild.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She watched the drama unfold online, following Niamh Clohessy\u2019s crucial comeback on the 18th hole.<\/p>\n
\u201cNiamh was down early doors and then she came back to be one up on the 17th,\u201d said Bergin.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn the 18th Niamh went for it and got over in three and two putted, and it was unbelievable.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
After years of playing, organising, managing and volunteering, Bergin will travel to Millicent and no matter what happens, the journey has already been remarkable, but if Monkstown could secure a first Junior Cup pennant by Friday evening, it would mean the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere would be no words,\u201d said Bergin.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would love to see us do it because we are a very passionate club and it would be great for the younger people coming forward. It would be very good for Munster and for Monkstown.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cThere’s been a lot of work put into it. It’s great and I hope it pays off.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Mary Bergin looks back at the start of her golfing journey, it is hard to believe how…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":612055,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3474,61,60,43,20676],"class_list":["post-612054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-golf","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-other-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=612054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/612055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=612054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=612054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=612054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}