With the founding of a men's and a women's union in the closing decade of the last century, Ireland's prospects as a significant golfing nation were effectively secured. Since then, nothing has done more to foster and expand the game in this country than a splendid happening at Portmarnock 39 years and four months ago: the Canada Cup of 1960.

Even allowing for the triumph of Harry Bradshaw and Christy O'Connor in the Mexico City staging of two years previously, it remained a superb achievement. As the then president of the GUI, Dr Billy O'Sullivan put it: "Ireland has a small golfing population, about 200 clubs, the majority of them with nine-hole courses. But what we lack in numbers we make up in enthusiasm."

The driving force behind the event was a university professor - actually the first professor of engineering in UCD - who would become the patron saint of middle-range handicap golfers throughout this land. Pierce Purcell was president of Portmarnock GC at the time and had been captain of the club in 1925 and 1937.

He travelled to Wentworth in 1956, ostensibly to see Ben Hogan and Sam Snead capture the Canada Cup for the US. His real objective, however, was to see the Canada Cup founder, John Jay Hopkins, and invite him to bring the tournament to Ireland. The upshot was that Hopkins, who also launched the International Golf Association in 1953 to "heal a world torn by the ravages of a Second World War", agreed to visit Portmarnock before making a decision. Having seen the links, he had no hesitation in agreeing.

So it was that the invitation to stage the Canada Cup was actually issued and accepted before the exploits of Bradshaw and O'Connor in far off Mexico. Indeed it was also before the successful staging of the Dunlop Masters at Portmarnock in 1959, when O'Connor captured the title in a thrilling finish.

Sadly, Hopkins didn't live to see the Portmarnock staging, but he knew his beloved event was in safe hands. In fact, when Purcell asked IGA executive director, Allen Siebens, who would run and finance the tournament, he was told: "You will. And the financing is in Portmarnock's hands."

Having accepted the responsibility of organising the finances, Purcell calculated it would cost in the region of £30,000, which was sufficient to pay the annual salaries of 30 middle-range civil servants at that time - as much as £1 million at today's values. Meanwhile, a Tournament Organising Committee (TOC) was set up with GUI president, O'Sullivan, as chairman.

In those days, competing in the Canada Cup was by invitation and to preserve the process, the IGA invited the amateur administrative body in each country, not the local PGA, to nominate the two-man national team. This was the case with Ireland, who didn't compete in the inaugural staging in Montreal in 1953, but in each subsequent event.

Another, less attractive obligation of the host country was to pay all hotel, travelling and catering costs for all members of the competing countries. In addition, there were the expenses of organising the event, which included the cost of links preparation, scoreboard, souvenir programme, receptions and official dinner.

Irish Dunlop guaranteed £10,000 and Bord Failte £5,000 towards these costs and there would be additional income from the gate receipts and programme advertising. But all monies from the sale of 10,000 programmes went to the Central Remedial Clinic, whose founder, Lady Valerie Goulding, organised volunteer helpers to sell them.

Local infrastructure was upgraded by Dublin Co Council, who widened and resurfaced the approach road from Portmarnock Village to the entrance to the club.

The IGA always asked the winners of the previous year to defend the title, which meant that Australians Kel Nagle and Peter Thomson, the champions at Royal Melbourne in 1959, were top of the invitation list. In addition, the host country were granted the privilege of nominating the members of the US and South African teams.

After consideration, the TOC named the legendary 1956 winners, Hogan and Snead, to represent the US, while Bobby Locke and Gary Player would represent South Africa. Locke was an especially appropriate choice, given that he won the gold medal as leading amateur when the Irish Open was held at Portmarnock in 1934. And when he returned as a professional to the North Dublin links four years later, he actually won the championship.

For his part, Player, then only 24 years of age, was building up an impressive reputation worldwide, having won the British Open at Muirfield in 1959. In the event, the thousands who flocked to Portmarnock to see him in action on the first day of the Canada Cup, were not disappointed. With some sparkling play, he shot a nine-under-par course record of 65, beating the target of 66 set by O'Connor in the final round of the Dunlop Masters the previous year.

But Hogan declined the invitation to play, on the grounds that he had more or less retired from competitive golf. So the IGA strongly urged that Arnold Palmer be invited, given that he was the top US money winner in 1958, when he captured the US Masters. Not surprisingly, the committee readily agreed.

Palmer, who was then less than two months from his 31st birthday, was making his first tournament appearance in Europe. In fact Portmarnock would be his first experience of links golf.

He relished the challenge, not least because it afforded him a taste of links terrain on his way to a debut in the Centenary British Open at St Andrews. "It's the first time I've played a course like this one," he said. "I've learned a lot of shots - shots I've never played before in my life."

Meanwhile, the selection committee, chaired by O'Sullivan, were widely expected to name Bradshaw and O'Connor as Ireland's representatives, partly as a recognition of their achievement of two years previously but also because Bradshaw was professional at the host club. In the best tradition of committees, however, they were led by the outcome of the 1959 Dunlop Masters, in which Joe Carr and Norman Drew were tied second behind O'Connor.

The upshot was that The Brad was overlooked, in favour of Drew. Then, in a richly ironic twist to what was a highly controversial issue at the time, it transpired that Bradshaw would have been unable to play, anyway. In fact when the tournament got under way, he was in a Dublin hospital being treated for a stomach complaint.

On hearing of The Brad's illness, Locke dashed off to dispatch a getwell telegram. "It's very sad to hear that Harry is laid up," said the South African of his old adversary from the 1949 British Open at Royal St George's, Sandwich. "He is a charming man - a great friend of mine."

As it happens, The Brad was up and about to see the closing stages of a memorable tournament in which Snead and Palmer restored US supremcy with a sparkling victory. O'Connor (fifth individual) and Drew (12th), combined to bring Ireland into a creditable fourth place.

If the celebrated North Dublin links was new to many of the competing players, it had long been a favourite of Bernard Darwin's, the father-figure of golf writers. From first sight, he had been captivated by its location within the curve of coastline, where Howth Hill rises against the eastern skies and Ireland's Eye and Lambay stand sharp from the deep seas. There, the links evolved on a narrow tongue of shallow duneland running parallel to the mainland, with water on three sides.

In a delightful piece in the tournament programme, for which I am indebted to my golfing friend Louis O'Connell, Darwin wrote: "I think it is now 54 years since I first saw Portmarnock - it was in many respects a different course from that of today, but it still possesses the same charming qualities, the lovely turf, the wildness and solitude, the obvious golfing mixture, the sandhills and the sea.

"In those days, one did not drive round by a good road to get there, one sailed there across a stretch of water and I remember making the voyage in a high wind and a snowstorm and being a poor sailor, rejoicing when I was safely over.

"My companion on that occasion was one whose name must always be remembered with that of Portmarnock. H M Cairnes, generally and affectionately known as `Guppy'. He devoted himself to the course which owed and still owes him much."

It was Palmer's first Canada Cup and Snead's sixth. And going into the final round, the so-called Slammer led by three strokes in the battle for the individual title. His final round of 75, however, opened the door for the Belgian Flory van Donck who took the title by two strokes with an aggregate of 279 - three strokes more than O'Connor had taken in the Dunlop the previous year.

The win was van Donck's finest moment in 19 Canada Cup appearances, which included an unbroken run of 17 from 1954 to 1970. In 1955, he and Peter Thomson lost in a three-man play-off for the individual title which was won by America's Ed Furgol.

In his report for The Irish Times of Monday, June 27th, Paul MacWeeney wrote: "From the weather aspect it could not have been a more brilliant tournament and it was so splendidly organised that the vast crowds of Saturday and yesterday had a very reasonable view of the proceedings, but after being led by the South Africans on the first day, the United Stated took an increasingly firmer grip on the team contest and not for a moment did they look like relaxing it.

"They were the perfect team, for both showed peak form during the first two days, at the end of which they led Ireland by three shots. Then, when Palmer had his uncertain spell on Saturday, Snead produced magnificent figures to keep them in front, and when he himself began to show his years over the final nine holes, Palmer stood as firm as a rock and piloted the ship safely home.

"No other pair could dovetail so smoothly over the four days. England came with a rush on Saturday and yesterday, their 36 holes aggregate on the last two days being the lowest, but they had lost too much ground in the opening round. Australia, the holders, seemed certain to finish in second place with only three holes to go, but Thomson had an ugly six at the 16th and Nagle took five at the 17th and those two errors ruined that hope.

"Ireland, partnered by England, had almost a personal struggle with their rivals for the honour of being runners-up, and a most exciting and tense affair it was too, but they finished as they had started yesterday, two shots in arrears, failing to bridge the narrow gap."

At the end it all, O'Sullivan was presented with a parchment scroll signed by each competitor, "in recognition of his warm hospitality and that of his (GUI) associates." A monumental undertaking had been a resounding success.