*Áine Donegan.
ENNIS’ Áine Donegan makes her first outing as a professional golfer this week, driving into her debut down under.
By Daragh Small
The nuances can often get lost in the outcome but when a record 16 Irish players stepped out at Carton House for last year’s KPMG Women’s Irish Open, it was the latest landmark achievement.
There have many in recent years, Lauren Walsh’s heroics in Alabama last December helped her secure an LPGA card while Morocco is fast becoming a beacon for Irish success.
Annabel Wilson, Anna Foster and Sara Byrne all bagged their LET cards there in December 2024, and more recently Áine Donegan followed up at Lalla Aicha Q-School.
The Lahinch golfer, who is also the first graduate of the Golf Ireland Professional Pathway, is one of eight Irish professionals who will play on Tour this year. This week she makes her first appearance as a professional at the Ford Women’s NSW Open in Wollongong Golf Club, Australia.
However, like many of her predecessors, this has been the product of years of hard work and occasions where failure on the world stage could have derailed a budding talent.
Donegan, Anna Foster and Beth Coulter formed an Irish team who finished bottom of the standings at the World Junior Girls Championship in Ontario in September 2019.
“We came dead last and we talk about it a lot because it’s funny how much we’ve progressed since,” said Donegan. “I remember being so excited about Canada, I’d never been there. I was in fifth year or Leaving Cert in school, and then it was just so bad, how we played. Golf is so fickle that you have just got to stick with the bad times to get to the good times, and that’s kind of a year-on-year process. Unless you learn from these things, they’re not really beneficial, but for example, I missed the first stage in Q-School in America last year, and I totally learned from that.
“If anything, that was the best thing that ever happened to me but it didn’t feel very nice last September, it felt awful, but I had a good reflection with my coach, and we knew the driver wasn’t there, and mentally I wasn’t good enough. I went and got those things sorted in the couple of months I had before Morocco. It was one of the best things that ever happened, but in September it felt like the end of the world.”
Donegan joins Foster on LET this year, with Coulter likely to be in her last year as an amateur, and there is a common thread in the group, with that trio also part of the team that played at the 2021 European Amateur Team Championships in Royal County Down.
“Two matches in the quarter-final against Italy went down 19,” said Donegan. “We came first or second in the stroke play and thought we had a really good chance of winning. It was similar in Spain two years ago, where we had a really good chance of winning Europeans, it just didn’t happen. It’s mad when you look back at that team, by next year everyone will be pro and have played on the Tour”.
Walsh was also part of that side, as was Byrne and Wilson, they have also gone to play professionally and feature in multiple KPMG Women’s Irish Opens since.
Donegan burst onto the mainstream in 2023 when she played in the US Open at Pebble Beach and was just one shot off the lead after a blistering first round.
The 23-year-old has shown a steady progress in recent years, a leading light at Louisiana State University while she won a Curtis Cup with GB&I in 2024, along with Home Internationals with her Irish teammates.
Professional golf was always the likely route and she advanced to the Golf Ireland Professional Pathway with her good friend, Coulter, last year.
That paved the way for her tilt at an LPGA Tour card for 2026 and while she came up short there, she was emphatic as she secured her place on the LET, when she finished in T5 at Lalla Aicha.
“It meant a lot,” said Donegan. “Going into Morocco, there was no way I could have prepared any better than how I did and then to see the results was really nice. It just shows that what I was doing that two months before was working, and I can build on that now”.
It means the Irish contingent will continue to grow on Tour while the latest addition will have plenty of expertise to call upon.
“The girls we’ve grown up with, a lot of them are on Tour now, and we all went out over the Christmas,” said Donegan. We were talking about it, and the girls who had already been on Tour, they said if you need anything don’t be afraid to ask. I’ve already learned so much. There’s so much more to it, we are very fortunate that there are this many of us out here because being the first, it’d be more difficult.
“I’d say, Leona (Maguire) and Olivia (Mehaffey) didn’t know much about it. They obviously had help, but it’s nice for us, especially our group, we’ve grown up together and we all know each other so well. None of us would be scared to reach out to ask anything and Anna’s been really good, we were in Spain three days and I learned a lot.”
The Ennis native, who had trials for the Irish soccer team when she was in early teens, opted for golf instead and turned professional last year.
She will be part of the Golf Ireland Professional Scheme as she tackles the paid ranks and knows the importance of initiatives like that as she looks to follow in the footsteps of the likes of Walsh.
“We started with the ILGU and Munster coaching, I played a couple of inter-pros and then in my late teens I got onto the Irish team and it’s been brilliant,” said Donegan. We had Chris Jelly in the girls’ and Donal Scott in the women’s team. Donal has helped me a lot this year, understanding the bigger picture and not thinking too deeply about golf.
“Neil Manchip’s been really helpful and his communication has been good, so I know that if I need anything I can call him and he’ll be able to tell me what direction to go in or give me any advice. He’s been in this kind of industry a long time. And the professional scheme is brilliant. There’s not a lot of countries that do it, I know that, and just even to have that helping hand starting off is amazing. A lot of us who get it are extremely grateful for it and it’s a huge, huge help”.
