Cork ARC House and Breakthrough Cancer Research

The Pro Shop Challenge was started in 2016. The original idea behind it was to help raise money to send Darragh Ryan, my nephew as a volunteer to aid Team Ireland at the 2017 Special Olympics World Winter Games in Austria. The format of the day was a golf challenge match between the 2 leading junior golfers in Kinsale Golf Club and the 2 resident professionals at the club (Ian Stafford and Ger Broderick). €2100 was raised on the day which well surpassed the €800 required to send Darragh to the World Games, the rest of the funds were distributed to 3 local Special Olympics Clubs to aid the purchase of sports equipment.

The Pro Shop Challenge became an annual event for a further 3 years until the CoVid pandemic interrupted its progress. The 3 subsequent stagings raised over €13,000 which was split between Marymount Hospice and the Jack and Friends Centre for Autistic Children, both in Cork bringing the total amount raised from the 4 stagings to over €15,000.

In April 2022, the original driving force behind the challenge, Darragh Ryan was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of cancer and sadly passed away on December 20th. This year in Darragh’s memory we would like to restart the challenge match to raise funds for Breakthrough Cancer Research and ARC House Counselling and Support Services. Using John Murphy’s status as a DP World Tour member and Rory Best’s household fame we hope to make this year’s event on August 10th much higher profile and surpass the amount raised from the first 4 stagings of the event and any support that you may be able to give us would be greatly appreciated.

This year's match will be a skins match between John Murphy, Rory Best, Ger Broderick and Myself! Hole sponsors along with your donations will create the skin fund for each hole with the person who accumulates the most cash from the hole wins awarded the perpetual trophy with all the funds combined and split equally between our 2 nominated charities.