The first club committees included people like Tom Fleming (President), Con Hartnett (Vice-President), Michael O’Mahony (Captain), Tadgh Fleming (Secretary- his son Damien is currently juvenile officer) and Paul O’Sullivan (PRO). It is from Paul’s weekly bulletins in the local newsletter that most of this information has been gathered. Most of the original course remains on its present site. In March 1975 an extra nine-hole course was opened due in a large part to the persistence of Ian O’Leary. These nine holes were located behind the current tenth and twelfth holes and the area was referred to as ‘the back greens’. This later became an eighteen hole course stretching across the area now occupied by the two G.A.A. pitches adjoining the present course. In those days, the land was extremely hilly, gorse-ridden with a pond next to the railway track. There was even a plan to develop boating on the pond next to the course. This type of landscape helped to create an exciting and testing course, however, with these extra holes came extra maintenance and the club had to revert to eighteen holes in the early eighties and the present site was chosen primarily because it was a lot easier to maintain. (The present grounds’ committee shudders to think what it the old course was like!). For many years, a group of men from Muckross looked after the course with some help on designated club work days – as Paul put it "Ladies will have the course to themselves next weekend as the men swap clubs for shovels". Something’s in the club haven’t changed at all.

By 1975 Michael O’Mahony had taken over as president of the club. Mick was president of the club for eleven years and continued to be active for many more years after. He was originally from Killorglin and worked locally in the Liebherr factory. He gave so much of his time, hard work and money to keep the club going through thick and thin. And in those days it was mostly thin. Mick was extremely proud club’s record regarding juveniles. ‘Mol an óige agus tiocfaidh siad’ certainly befitted Mick’s attitude to the youth of the club. Loads of schoolchildren spent their summer holidays playing pitch and putt and many helped voluntarily in looking after the course. Youngsters also used to spend time looking for golf balls which Mick used to buy off them for a few pence. During one scratch cup many years ago, a player from Cork was finding the course a bit too difficult and had managed to lose all his golf balls. So the Corkonian called in to Mick to buy a golf ball for his second round. On leaving the clubhouse he realised he had just purchased the very same ball he had just lost on the sixteenth!

Johnny Kelly took over from Mick in the mid-eighties. The Kelly family are a pitch and putt family through and through, Johnny’s son Sean was a tremendous PRO of the club from 2006 to 2010, his wife Mary was a regular at club competitions while Johnny himself played up until his passing in October 2003.

It must have been a matter of great pride for Mick O’Mahony to see the youth of the club take such a proactive position in the late eighties. At the age of just seventeen, Sean O’ Sullivan assumed the position of president. (Surely a milestone in any senior voluntary organisation) Another youngster by the name of Ricky Kelly was also a prominent figure. Sean and Ricky led a very active local fundraising campaign that financed the building of our present clubhouse and, with the help of another dedicated member Michael Blackwell, the installation of our watering system. Sean remained a diligent president until the mid nineties. Ricky, sadly, died at the young age of twenty-two due to cystic fibrosis. Each year the club hold a local inter-pub tournament (something Ricky himself started) named after him and it is a fun event in which past players make an effort to participate. The recent addition of a barbeque to the festivities has proved a very popular choice and the competition has attracted no more famous a face than Kerry GAA legend Colm ‘The Gooch’ Cooper who proved himself to be just as clinical with the small ball as he is with the big one.

In the mid nineties president Mike Landers and vice president Ger Cullnane built five sand based greens. Cullnane, a member of the club from its founding, believed that Deerpark was worthy of hosting national events every year and wanted the greens to be of the highest standard. He originally designed the tenth green in the shape of a keyhole and christened the hole ‘Keyhole Corner’. Sadly Mike Landers passed away at the start of 2008; a colourful character within the club he is dearly missed by all and in his memory the club has done battle with Corkery’s Pitch & Putt Society in a Ryder Cup style competition for the past few years.

There has always been a strong female participation in the club. In the early years, Sheila Coleman and her daughter Martina were prominent players in the club. When the club hosted the 1978 National Strokeplay, Maura Brosnan was a member of the committee. During the eighties, Kathleen Blackwell used to run the club house during the summers. Sisters Eileen Switzer and Sheila O’Donoghue have filled various positions in the club in the nineties. More recently Norma Lynch continued a family tradition in assuming the role of treasurer in the club. Margaret C. Looney served as treasurer in the early part of the new millennium while Margaret B. Looney was an energetic club secretary between 1999 and 2007. Indeed the club’s present honorary president is the evergreen Kay O’Sullivan. Kay’s enthusiasm for the club is well-known all throughout Killarney and she has done fantastic work in terms of both fundraising and promoting the club and she has always looked after the gardening aspect of the club very well. Two Mary’s; O’Mahony and Murphy have also been prominent in the club in recent times.

2004 was a landmark year for the club with the staging of National Matchplay Gents and Ladies Championships. All the hard work and sacrifice put in by the committee over the previous two years paid off in dramatic fashion when Derry McCarthy finally claimed that elusive All-Ireland Championship in the Gents category. Amid the scorching hot conditions Derry held his nerve and overcame some close scares along the way to defeat Chris Scannell at the final hole. Derry was swamped by many well wishers at the conclusion of the match, indicative of how much it meant to the club that Derry had become the first Kerry player to win a senior singles title at the highest level. He was rewarded with the captaincy of the Irish team in 2005 leading them to a successful victory at European Championships in Arnhem, Holland. In the meantime Derry has assumed chairmanship of the club from Danny Nolan (who after many great years of service to the club was appointed the Honorary Vice-President of the club at the 2010 AGM) and gone into what some say is ‘semi retirement’ as he concentrates now on the development and maintenance of the course and family life.

Success has not been confined to the adult grades as the club has produced some outstanding juvenile players over the last 10 to 15 years. In 1995 Damien Fleming, Michael Maher, Bryan Fleming, Dermot Tuohy and Robbie O’Brien Jnr were victorious in the Munster Club Championship and made it two-in-a-row the following year with Colm O’Dowd, John McGrath and Ricky Fleming replacing Michael, Dermot and Robbie in 1996. Eileen McCarthy also excelled in the girls grade winning Munster Strokeplay and Matchplay titles in 1996 and 1997 and doing the double in 1999. She also finished national runner-up the same year. In 2003 Michael Foley, David Nolan and Michael Murphy were part of the Kerry team that won the All-Ireland Inter-County Championships at ESB Co Cork, while the following year Alan Kelly (nephew of Ricky), Ivan Ashe and Darragh Casey were part of another victorious Kerry team as they won the Munster Inter-County Championship in Dungarvan, Co Waterford.

In 2006 the club staged another All-Ireland Championship with the National Seniors Championship attracting many stars of yesteryear to Killarney when amid dreadful conditions; Seapoint’s Pat Greene shot a magnificent 15 under par 93 to win the big prize. At present the club is embarking on the rebuilding of the soil based greens into sand based ones and it is hoped the championship course will be reopened by 2009/2010. Such a project requires good stewardship and the club can’t ask for any better than Derry, green keeper extraordinaire Ger O’Connor and Danny Looney in overseeing this project. A second water tank and a new sprinkler system has also been added since 2007, needless to say they haven’t got much usage with our recent summers!