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A grieving widow, currently grounded in Gran Canaria by the coronavirus travel ban, could only watch the funeral of her husband, former Royal Tara golf professional Adam Whiston, on her cell phone yesterday.
Mona Whiston, who was married to Adam for 52 years, spoke today of her heartbreak from the Puerto Rico holiday apartment where she has had to live alone since her return travel arrangements to be with her family in Silverlawns, Navan, Co Meath, were suddenly canceled in March.
“I have tried so many ways to get home and especially since Adam suddenly became ill several weeks ago and was confined in Our Lady’s Hospital, Navan, with what turned out to be terminal lung cancer,” a tearful Mona said.
“It all happened so suddenly following the bad news by doctors at the Mater Hospital who decided that chemotherapy would not be of any help to him, and he was eventually told in Navan he would be given palliative care in a hospice,” Mona added.
She said the cancer developed so quickly that he had died just after mid-day on Saturday last.
“There was no way I could get home but I have been with him all the time through WhatsApp until his death,” she said.
“He was great up until doctors from the Mater gave him his test results.
I was alone and heartbroken when nurses at Navan told me on Friday last that it was near the end.
Mona said she was with her husband by remote video link every day. “He was only in hospital one day just over three weeks ago when he was put into isolation and tested for Covid-19. Results showed he did not have the virus. ”
“I would have been home well in time for his passing but for this lockdown that is causing so much pain around the world,” Mona said.
“I am keeping in touch with Aer Lingus and still trying and hoping to get home at the earliest to be with my family.”
Mona said that she had been able to find some way home within the last week or two her only contact with her husband would still have been through their WhatsApp link as she would have had to go into quarantine for 14 days.
“But at least I would have been there for his funeral,” she said. “It was awful having to watch it on my phone.”
She and her chain-smoking husband had holidayed regularly in Gran Canaria but on this occasion Adam had decided to remain behind. He had gone to his doctor in February with a pain in his leg and had been told that unless he gave up smoking he would lose his limb.
“I couldn’t face not being able to play golf and gave up the cigarettes only five weeks ago,” Mona said. “The tumor developed remarkably quickly afterwards.”
Mona watched by video link yesterday as the short family cortege accompanying Adam to Mount Jerome Crematorium detoured briefly into the half-acre car park at Royal Tara Golf Club where he was the PGA professional for 30 years up to his retirement in 2007.
Club Captains John Brennan and Barbara O’Rourke were there with past captains and presidents, as well as professional golfers Adam had trained and given their start in the profession, mounted a guard of honor.
As the cortege slowly swept around the car park, stopping only for seconds, former Captain Larry O’Rourke paid a brief tribute to one of the smallest and biggest golf professionals in the business before the small group, socially distanced, together tearfully gave him an ovation on his final drive.
Adam trained under his father, also Adam, in Dunlaoghaire Golf Club before becoming the professional attached to Foxrock Golf Club for nine years and then becoming Royal Tara’s first professional in 1978.
His biggest win in golf was at the Uniroyal Tournament in Ireland which led to his receiving an invitation to the Canadian PGA tournament where I played a practice round with the great Arnold Palmer. Arnie told Whiston he had cost him a $ 100 bet after betting that Chi Chi Rodriguez was the smallest player in golf – until he met the 67 inches tall Adam.
Current Royal Tara PGA professional John Byrne said Adam was among the most generous people he had met in his lifetime.
“When his assistants moved on to full-time professional jobs elsewhere he would stock their first shops for them and just say pay it off when you can, as he did with me when I moved to Tramore Golf Club,” John said.
Former Royal Tara Assistant Kevin Grealy confirmed the little man’s big-hearted nature, saying: “When I got the professional job in Athlone he told me to bring in a big van and he filled it with enough gear to stock and open my golf shop. He simply said pay when you can but eventually refused to take all of it. ”
A former Royal Tara captain, Benny Crooks, said Adam was one of the very first club professionals to introduce classes for juvenile members, teaching them from the age of about six. He called them the Pee-Wees and they included John Byrne who went on to represent Ireland at amateur level before taking up the game professionally.
Adam Whiston died on Saturday, May 9, five over the biblical par for life’s score and, in golf parlance, three over level fours. For the non-golfers he was 75.
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