26 / www.IrishGolfer.ie 2020/5 RAFLEWSKI GOLFIS COMING TO IRELAND QUESTION: WHAT DO THREE OF THE LAST FOUR WORLD NUMBER ONES HAVE IN COMMON WITH COUNTY CAVAN? ANSWER: THEY’RE ALL WORKING WITH IRISH SHORT GAME COACH, GARETH RAFLEWSKI. THE CANADA-BASED OMAGH NATIVE HAS WORKED WITH 65 OF THE GAME’S BEST PLAYERS ACROSS THE LPGA AND PGA TOURS OVER THE PAST THREE YEARS AND NOW HE’S OPENING HIS FIRST PERFORMANCE ACADEMY IN EUROPE WITH A STATE-OF-THE-ART SHORT GAME STUDIO SET FOR PGA NATIONAL SLIEVE RUSSELL, WRITES JOHN CRAVEN 2020/5 www.IrishGolfer.ie / 27 INTERVIEW or a nation quick to Move he did. In fact, Raflewski as a young pro,” he recalled. RIGHT: F Gareth with Ariya hop on a home success bounced around like he was “I thought that time equalled Jutanugarn and story, particularly in sport, trapped inside a pinball machine better. I thought, if you put it in her team you’d think the short game between mini-tours, the EuroPro 8 hours a day and put it in, day BELOW-LEFT: expert behind the current Tour, the then Nationwide after day after day, things will be Left to right with world number one women’s Tour and further afield on the better. It made sense. Gareth is Mariajo Uribe , Tiffany Joh, professional golfer would be Canadian Tour, grinding away in “I often hear a lot of players Jane Park- at the a household name on Irish the cash games that have claimed say, ‘if I just had the time to Scottish Open shores. Then again, with a the lives of many a tour pro. practice, if I just had more time name like Raflewski, you can “Every day I played I second to go out and work on my game understand why the Irish guessed it,” he said of turning his I’d be so much better’, but the haven’t been so quick to claim back on the 9-5. truth is, it’s not time, it’s the this one as our own. “When it’s going well, you’re quality and the information “It’s actually O’Raflewski,” like, ‘god, this was a good choice, that’s going to make the biggest short game extraordinaire, I knew I should’ve been doing difference.” Gareth Raflewski jokes of a this’, and when it’s not going so It was still a gamble – there name not synonymous with Irish well, you’re thinking, ‘what am I was no evidence to suggest folklore. His grandfather was a doing here?’ But as it turned out, the life of the teaching pro Polish RAF pilot who escaped to that was the best thing for me. would yield more fruit than the Ireland during the war and met “The struggles are real and touring one– but Raflewski had his grandmother before settling down in the North of the island. It was here that Gareth’s love of Moriya was earning 80 or 90 grand golf developed on the fairways of Omagh GC. the season I started working with her He showed potential as an and the last three or four years she’s amateur, competing across the interprovincial scene and been averaging at least a million championship circuits but he was a dedicated student too and travelled to Liverpool before graduating as an engineer. Yet, despite his degree in his back pocket, a steady 9-5, healthy income and a shiny company car in his future, his grá for golf was something Raflewski was powerless to ignore. “When it’s in you and you have a calling to do something - I just always wanted to be involved in it so if it wasn’t going to be around playing, it was going to be coaching or something else,” he said. “It’s in my blood and it wouldn’t have mattered how much money I was going to be when you’re working with good already proved he wasn’t afraid were a number of really great making as an engineer, I still players, to be able to relate to of rolling the dice and entered coaches near me and I just would’ve wanted to pursue the how they’re feeling – be they a the competitive cauldron of thought, I still want to do this golf. I had my parents looking at tour pro or a recreational player coaching believing he could here. I got tell that there was a me sideways saying, ‘are you sure who’s just terrified about the stand out amongst the crowd. He club looking for an assistant pro, about this?’ I had my boss at the monthly medal - it really helps.” moved to Canada and despite an a really nice high-end private engineering company telling me The game may have defeated intimidating list of coaches plying club so I met the pro and said ‘we have a great project for you him as a player but Raflewski’s their trade on that side of the obviously I’d work as an assistant and we’re going to bump you up, experience of the grind coupled Atlantic, a bit of luck and a bunch - I want to get my foot in the you’ll have your own car, expense with his studious disposition of motivation meant there was door - but I want to coach, that’s account, everything’ and I paved the way for the twist in his no looking back. what I want to pursue. thought, ‘my god, if I start getting career path that would ultimately “At that time moving to “They said ‘Gareth, I don’t any more I’m never going to leave inform the leading coach he is Canada, Sean Foley [former think our members are into so I had to pull the trigger and today. coach to Tiger Woods] was an that, they don’t take lessons’. make a move’.” “I had no idea what I was doing hour down the road and there I think three years later I was 28 / www.IrishGolfer.ie 2020/5 RAFLEWSKI GOLF IS COMING TO IRELAND Gareth with Lydia Ko doing about 12-1500 lessons in was paying off with the local He returned to Canada and Omagh was translating to the a summer season! At the end of swingers. He’d sit out by the although he enjoyed success with fairways of the most elite Tour in the day, if you give people what 16th tee, offering his services PGA Tour names like Kiradech women’s golf. they’re looking for and you lay it for three -hole playing lessons Aphibarnrat, Michael Gligic and Park’s friend and fellow LPGA out for them, people are going with the members, all the while Hudson Swafford, Raflewski’s Tour competitor, Tiffany Joh to come and if you get results – developing his fascination with big break was to come in the entrusted Raflewski to improve whether they’re Tour players or on-course coaching that would women’s game. He joined forces her putting and soon doubled her the Club Champion – if you make serve him so well today. It was with LPGA Tour pro, Jane Park season earnings too, but it was someone better, you’re going to his love of teaching combined and his influence was almost when the Northern Irishman was get busier and that’s just it.” with the immediate feedback instant as Park doubled her enlisted to oversee Thai talent, Raflewski moved home briefly of testing that teaching in a money on Tour the following Moriya Jutanugarn that things after a successful first spell playing environment that spurred year. Suddenly, the same started to truly skyrocket. in Canada and even without Raflewski onto his ultimate formula that saw Raflewski’s “Moriya was earning 80 or a driving range at Omagh ambition of coaching the world’s timetable book up with lessons 90 grand the season I started Golf Club, his Midas touch best players. at members’ clubs in Canada and working with her and the last 2020/5 www.IrishGolfer.ie / 29 INTERVIEW three or four years she’s been communicate that with the in a little notebook. Then when so he can then extract every averaging at least a million,” he student to get the best out of they come back, if you don’t ounce of their talent. said. them that is really the art of remember their name, you “I will research what they like, I Unsurprisingly, her sister coaching.” run into the back and get the will ask their caddie what they’re Ariya, also a budding LPGA star How he builds those notebook and run out saying, into,” he continued. “It can be at the time wanted to work with connections, well he credits ‘hey John, how’s it going? Pint something as stupid as a sitcom the man who was proving a real that to his Irish upbringing and of Guinness again is it?’ and and I’ll sit and watch a couple of differential in Moriya’s upturn in tricks of the bar trade that made they’re like, ‘Jesus, how’d you episodes that the player might fortunes. him a popular figure amongst remember?’ and it’s, ‘of course I be into. Tiffany is into surfing so “Ariya was 66 in the world in frequenters of the local high wouldn’t forget you, how’s little I spent some time learning about January 2016 and at the end of stools. Johnny and Mary?’ surfing, some different terms the year she was number one “I learned it from a barman,” “I think it’s the Irish in me!” and moves so that I could start and won 6 times on Tour that he explained.