The reality of professional golf has hit many young Irish players hard in recent years, leaving a dearth of talent on the DP World Tour. But there are green shoots at the lower levels and Jack Madden is determined to grind his way to the top, literally step by step.
Madden blueprinted a four year journey to the DP World Tour by 2026 and at the halfway stage he is crucially still on track as he looks to make a breakthrough next year after a thoroughly successful and encouraging first season as a professional.
“I absolutely love it, that’s my first year done,” says Madden. “I turned professional after college so I got the tail end of last season in the US and have been home playing on the Clutch Tour this year. It’s something I always intended on doing so now to be doing it and the results have been nice this year so I’ve just enjoyed every minute of it, it’s been brilliant.”
2023 saw Madden see out the remainder of his amateur career in the United States before taking up tier two status on the Clutch Pro Tour – a mini tour played across the UK and Ireland.
The 25-year-old had the option to play on tier one but opted to balance his golf with a part time job for a cellular boosting and WiFi solutions company and it proved the perfect remedy as he won twice on the Clutch Pro Tour and won the second tier Order of Merit to earn five Challenge Tour starts for next season.
“I felt at the start of the year because I was working I knew the T1 is brilliant because it’s kind of like the EuroPro and there’s huge incentive. But we saw there was five Challenge Tour starts for winning T2 so I felt that was a decent opportunity to do something,” Madden explains as he looks to make some money to fund himself for the step up next season.
“I work two days a week so I felt it would suit playing T2 better so I could get a day of work in during the week. I feel like T1 requires you to play quite often to get up the order of merit and get the rewards.
“It was just an attractive balance and the incentives for T2 were brilliant. It made sense to do it.”
Working part time also helped the Tyrone man mentally. The Clutch Pro, like other mini tours, will have a series of events in quick succession then prolonged breaks. It’s a scenario he was aware about from speaking to Rob Moran who also recently completed his first professional season and one he was prepared for.
“I noticed that because I would be fairly friendly with Rob Moran and he was telling me about it,” Madden continues. “I never looked at the Alps too much so I don’t know much about it at all so I was surprised to see them having four or five weeks between tournaments.
“T2 had a nice condensed schedule, April to September. They ran it and you played 2-3 tournaments, had a week off then played 2-3 again so it worked out well schedule wise. It was enjoyable. I would come home to work for two or three days and not think of golf and then you would get ready again so it was good.”
Madden comes from a big golfing family. He learned how to play the game in his native Dungannon before joining Royal Portrush Golf Club when he was 15.
Madden loves to keep his family around him in his golfing life. His uncle Seamus Duffy is his swing coach and they have worked together since he was a child. Duffy was swing coach to Alan Dunbar and Paul Cutler as amateurs so Madden is definitely in safe hands.
Madden’s physio and trainer is Tommy Gallagher while his brother Danny has been both a loyal caddie and manager.
“The work Tommy has done with me, Seamus introduced me to Tommy when I was 14. I didn’t want anything to do with the gym. The last three or four years I’ve really got into it so he has been invaluable as well,” Madden says.
“My brother has been brilliant for me, he will book flights, accommodation and stuff for me. He is invaluable it allows me to worry about showing up and playing golf. There’s a lot more that goes into professional golf that just teeing it up on the day you’re supposed to play. He’s been invaluable for this stage of my career so I have a great support system.”
Madden has learned to go low on the Clutch Pro Tour, with a stroke average of 69.9 including a low round of 64 (-8) while he also led the local Open Championship qualifier at Co Louth Golf Club with a round of 66.
He knows he will have to bring that stroke average down if he is to make the grade on the Spring Series of the Nordic Golf Tour and Tartan Pro Tour but more importantly in his five opportunities to impress on the Challenge Tour – the level below the DP World Tour.
“It will be nice to have something to look forward to and look towards,” adds Madden who is relishing the challenge.
“It will be a real goal of mine to take advantage of those five starts. If you do well you never know where you will end up you can get the ball rolling and keep passing on.”
There is an avenue to achieving further status on the Challenge Tour if he can impress on the Nordic Tour in the off season and he is not afraid to think about the possibilities.
“The goal would be to get myself established this year and hopefully I can set out a full schedule and go from there. Going to start on the Nordic Winter Series at the start of the year. I had a roommate in college who started the year with no status, won three of seven on that tour and ended up in China on the Challenge Tour and finished 56th on the Road to Mallorca so he has inspired me.
“You never know what could happen if you have a hot start to the year. Definitely using the Nordic to warm up for the Challenge Tour and if it goes well you can get a card through it too.”
Madden won’t be a stranger when he makes the step up to the Challenge Tour having played in Final Qualifying for the Open Championship in the summer, the Bretagne Open on the Challenge Tour and the International Series England where he missed the cut but learned plenty by rubbing shoulders with Peter Uihlein, Andy Sullivan, Richard Bland, Harolv Varner III, Branden Grace and Thomas Pieters.
These are experiences he believes will stand to him next season.
“I had some exposure when I tried to qualify for the Open. I got to Final Qualifying. Then the International Series was in Mid-August. I saw the same faces at both so I felt more comfortable when I got to Foxhill. Lahiri played both. I missed the cut but it was an eye opener that I’m not that far away.
“I didn’t play great at all and missed the cut by four. It was one of those things where I came away disappointed but I convinced myself that I wasn’t a million miles away. It’s good to get that exposure early. First year as a professional getting a start on a main tour is very nice. Not a lot of people get that opportunity, so it was brilliant to have that experience.”
“That’s one of the things I think about a lot. Growing up playing in Ireland I know how to play the links golf but unless you are playing in the Open it’s not very beneficial! But the adversity that the weather provides on the north coast definitely prepares you for anything you will face anywhere else. A bad day on the north coast, it doesn’t get much worse anywhere else.”
Unsurprisingly, Madden knocks it around handily on the links, but there isn’t much calling for links professional golf other than two or three tournaments a season. But he feels battling his way around the occasionally brutal conditions on the north coast of Ireland has given him a thick skin to deal with what comes his way.
He was fortunate that he started watching golf during a golden period for Irish golf when Pádraig Harrington won three majors in two seasons before he was quickly followed by Graeme McDowell, Darren Clarke, Rory McIlroy and later Shane Lowry.
“All the major winners came back to back at that time, Rory, Padraig, Darren, Graeme and then Shane came along. So all of them are my idols not one person in particular. They all merged together and you have Lowry now so they have all given me that belief that I can do it too if I do the right things,” he adds.”
Madden hasn’t taken on any Irish advice. During his collegiate career he would come home for a fortnight at most so when he teed it up on the Clutch this year he was an unknown quantity to the other Irish players, many of whom he has overtaken.
It’s not about putting his name in bright lights for Madden, it’s about keeping the head down and plugging away. Sticking to the blueprint.
Several young Irish players, who achieved much more than Madden at amateur level, have already experienced the harsh realities of professional golf in their fledgling careers.
He is under no illusions that his journey to the top won’t be plain sailing and it may take him until later than 2026 to qualify for the DP World Tour but he is determined to stick it out for the long haul.
“Unless you are the superstar you are not going straight to the top. If you start at the bottom which I have and just take it day by day you never know where you can end up over a good five years rather than bursting yourself for six months and running out of energy and packing it in.
“I’m definitely in it for the long run and if I can nudge myself up through the ranks for five, six, seven years you could find yourself close to where you want to be.”
Conor Purcell recently earned his DP World Tour card via the Challenge Tour, having made his way up through the ranks starting on the Alps Tour.
Purcell had to start from the bottom up but took advantage of every opportunity that came his way, something Madden has been inspired by and looking to emulate.
“I’ve been following Conor this year and he has done phenomenal. What he has done you have a real life example of someone sticking to himself and trying to figure out what works and keep plugging away. He’s ended up where he wants to be and it can happen to anyone if you try hard enough.
“I may ask him for the blueprint!”