The Keating Championship officially began in 1987 when John Sr. and John visited Scotland and Ireland for the first time. The previous year, Michael Keating walked onto Ballybunion (wearing jeans) utterly clueless that it was one of the world’s finest golf courses.

John and John played the greatest courses of Scotland and Ireland, including Ballybunion, and John Sr. won every round except Ballybunion. But the old man fell in love with the place and it was determined shortly thereafter that the Keating Championship would be an annual event held only on Irish soil.

For the next four years the event was held at Ballybunion and Lahinch. In 1992, the three Keatings grew tired of arguing with each other and opened the field to more family, inviting son-in-law Scott Templeton. By 1995, Scott grew tired of the Keatings, but not the golf and Guinness, and invited his own father, Allen Templeton.
That year, the first “outsider,” was also invited.

With the sacrosanctity of the event now violated, close friends of the Keatings were welcome. And the Keatings had now become proselytizers for Ballybunion, with nary a golf soul regretting the pilgrimage to the hallowed links of southwest Ireland.

John Sr. joined Ballybunion as an overseas member in 1989 and by the time the two sons figured that sentimentality was more important than practicality, they too joined 14 years later for 14 times the price.

By 2007, 32 others had journeyed to Ireland with the Keatings, including three brothers-in-law, three other father-son combos, three brother pairs and a husband and wife duo that ushered in the first (and still only) woman competitor. Nine different players have won the championship, which has been played every year except 2003. John Sr. has played in every event while Michael missed the tournament’s inception and John missed one year due to back surgery.

The competition has been held at numerous other Irish courses — Doonbeg, Royal County Down, Portmarnock, Tralee, Ballyliffin, Ballybunion’s New Course and Lahinch — but after sampling the great Irish offering of golf, it is now the Ballybunion Old Course that is the permanent home of the Keating Championship. And it’s not a bad venue, being ranked annually among the world’s top 15 courses by all the notable golf magazines.

There is nothing quite like Irish golf and nothing quite like Ballybunion. And there is nothing quite like Irish weather. It had been suggested that someone should take home a handful of Irish soil and sprinkle it on the first tee of some Caribbean resort the next year and continue with the Keating Championship. The idea, not without immense appeal, has ultimately been rejected and all future Keating Championships, hopefully into the next generation, will be staged on the great links hard by the Atlantic Ocean.