Brothers and Sons: The Story of a Golf Tournament Like No Other

Every September, almost two hundred golfers gather in picturesque Kenmare, Ireland, for a few rounds of golf and more than a few rounds of drinks. The Kenmare Club's Brothers Tournament is not any ordinary weekend amateur tournament; it's only open to brothers—three-man teams of them. Over a Friday and Saturday, families like the Hardys and the Sullivans gather to shoot 36 holes and celebrate fraternity. For some, it's the only time of year they can count on seeing each other. Like the Bavieras.

"It's extremely special," said 39-year-old Jules Baviera. "It's just the three us. You're back to square one."

The French Baviera brothers— Jules; his twin, Pierre; and their older brother Jean—have played in the tournament ten years straight, once even flying to Ireland from three different continents. The Bavieras won the Brothers Tournament last year. I spent this year's competition alongside them to see if they could defend their title.

***

The action started Wednesday night, when Jules and Jean arrived in Ireland from Paris. Pierre married an Irish woman, Dearbhalla, and they live with their family in an upper-middle class suburb of Dublin. When Jules and Jean pulled into the driveway, the kids of the house—all four of them—went haywire. The visiting brothers showered Paul and Luke, 9 and 6 respectively, with gear of Paris St. Germaine, the boys' favorite soccer team. Coloring sets were distributed to Maya and Alya, 4-year-old twins. For dinner, Dearbhalla cooked a traditional Irish casserole. The table killed a few bottles of wine, and multilingual toasts kept everyone up past bedtime.

Thursday morning was all business. According to tournament organizers, the Bavieras are one of the "ten or so teams who take the tournament very seriously." Before filling a rented SUV to the brim with golf bags, the brothers went to the driving range (Paul and Luke joined) and stocked up on tees. Occasionally, they talked about the course at Kenmare, but mostly the brothers, who hadn't been all three together in months, made fun of each other. Jean, who at 53 is 14 years older than the twins, mocked Jules for wearing a magnetic "relaxation" wristband; Jules made fun of Pierre's Irish accent; Pierre made fun of Jean's raggedy leather jacket.

The Bavieras arrived in Kenmare, a few hours' drive from Dublin, that afternoon and checked into the rental house they've stayed in the past seven years. During the Brothers Tournament, Kenmare swells: B&Bs fill up, restaurants stay in the weeds late into the night, and live bands and drinkers enliven pubs until closing time. "It brings in as much money into the town as anything else all year," said John May, the tournament's captain and lead organizer.

The Bavieras say the house they rent is a great deal, but this year they found that the owners had failed to stock towels and toilet paper. Pierre, whose day job is a CEO for an analytics firm, called the owner demanding answers, while Jules, a consultant, paced up and down the stairs, noticeably not going the bathroom. The twins both posses the physicality natural athletes exude: growing up, Jules was a golf star; Pierre was an accomplished fencer. Jean winked at me as he went outside and sat on the picnic table in the yard. He rolled a cigarette and looked at Ireland. Past the rental houses there was a lake, and past the lake a hill. Old stone walls squared off pastures where sheep grazed. Scanning upward, green bled into a gray mist and then the mist smudged into sky. (Days later, on the same picnic table, Jean would describe what it feels like to hit a ball well: "It's mystical, really. You strike it and you know within a second what it's going to do.")

That evening, it started to rain—a deluge that that the forecast said would continue through Friday. Tournament organizers considered canceling Friday's round but decided to give it a shot. The Bavieras had an 8:30 AM tee time, one of the first of the day. The tournament has each brother play three ball with members of two other teams, essentially setting up matches three teams at a time.

In the tee box for first hole, Jules and his two opponents introduced themselves. Paddy Barry wobbled towards Jules, hand outstretched. He was unshaven and smelled like a bar. Tucked in his ear was a cigarette, unprotected from the rain.

"What's your name? Ju— Juli—" said Paddy.

"Julien," corrected Jules, smiling.

"Sorry," said Paddy. "I was arrested about half an hour ago in Kilarney. My brother rolled down from Cork and took me out of me cell."

Paddy was first to play. He nailed a sweet drive straight down the fairway.

"OK, lads. If I don't fall over myself once, I'll fall over myself twice. You'll find me down by that hole," said Paddy.

The tournament was underway.

By 1 PM, the hard rain had not abated. Roads flooded and most of the courses in Ireland were closed. Before the day's round at Kenmare was called off, Pierre had made it all the way to hole 15, Jean to 14, and Jules to 13. Another competitor suggested to Pierre that the Baviera team be penalized for having had a practice day on the course.

"I have to say, I think he might have been right," Pierre told me. "I figured out most of my mistakes."

Tee times were set to continue until late afternoon, until it was announced that Friday was canceled. "Obviously the fellas won't be out golfing, so they'll be having a few jars," John May said. "They'll be in the 19th hole, as we call it." And indeed the dozens of golfers still milling around the pro shop installed themselves at the bar and didn't leave until late that night. Red-nosed and rowdy, the mostly Irish mob seemed straight out of a Guinness ad.

Deep in the 19th hole were the Sullivans, a family from Dublin. While the Bavieras are pros at trash talking, the Sullivans set the gold standard. "All the slagging. It's a real crack," said Michael Sullivan. Michael is one of six Sullivan brothers. Every year, the family stages a Sullivan Ryder's Cup to see which three get to compete in the Brothers Tournament. Supposedly the Sullivans logged two rounds of golf that weekend, but every time I popped into the clubhouse they were there pounding drinks. All three were masters at volleying slang-riddled insults at each other while simultaneously contributing to a group text eviscerating the three brothers stuck at home. "It's a real crack," Michael repeated.

The Bavieras drank a couple beers, but left early. With Friday's scores voided and three holes flooded, 15 holes on Saturday would determine the entire tournament. Getting rest was key. Before passing out, Jules, Jean, and Pierre told me how they came to love golf and what the Brothers Tournament means to them.

It started with a sailing accident. In 1976, their father, Erno Baviera, was nearly strangled to death when his sailboat capsized and his neck got tangled in a rope. Doctors told him he could never play high-intensity sports again, so Erno picked up golf.

"He went mad for it almost immediately," said Jules. The boys grew up with the game. Baviera senior provided his sons with elite golf lessons at Stade Français in Paris. He moved them to a suburb that had a country club. Family vacations were planned around golf courses both in France and abroad. Every opportunity to improve their game was made available to them. By his early 20s, Jules, the best of the three, was playing the semi-pro circuit in Florida.

Erno's monomania for golf was eclipsed by only one thing: his job. "He worked six days a week and did nothing on Sunday so he could do it all again," said Jean. "He never played football, never drove me to school. If you wanted to be with Dad, you played golf." An Italian immigrant, Erno "worked like a dog" to ascend the ranks of French society. He mastered the language, enrolled in the French university system, and married a woman from an aristocratic family from Brittany. While still a young man, Erno became a doctor and opened a profitable research laboratory. He went on to teach at the French College of Medicine.

"He almost leads two lives. You'd never know where he came from," said Jules. "He is hardworking, smart, courageous. He did things I'd never be able to do."

The price of his success was that his children—in their eyes, at least—grew up largely fatherless. "He was an absent dad," said Jules. "He just wasn't there."

Pierre, Jean, and Jules remain devout to their father. They visit and call regularly, and say the relationship they have with him is positive. And they acknowledge they have him to thank for golf, which connects them profoundly. "Golf is the thread between all of us," said Pierre. "We are committed to each other."

***

Commitment characterized every group of brothers I met at the tournament. If a team fails to reenter the Brothers Tournament in a given year for any reason, outside a death in the family or other extreme circumstance, they can't play in it again. Thirty or so teams are on a waitlist to join. In an effort to maintain geographic diversity, organizers have set aside quotas for each region of Ireland. Only eight teams from Kenmare are allowed in , for example. The Sullivans, from Dublin, waited five years before making it in.

The Brothers Tournament began in 1978. One team of septuagenarians has played every year since 1979; they have no intention of stopping until one of them dies. Multiple generations older than most of the competitors, this crew spoke with hard accents, and even occasionally dipped into Gaelic. The Irish government, in an effort to revive the indigenous tongue, requires Gaelic classes in schools, but many say the initiative is failing. Some golfers still have a connection to the language, though—and by extension the land. "There's courses everywhere," one told me. "It's not a rich person's sport like in the States. We've always played."

***

Saturday started well for the Bavieras. On the front nine, Pierre logged four straight pars and Jean nailed a sweet birdie. Jules, on the other hand, couldn't finish for the life of him. He started nearly every hole with an impressive drive, but a shaky short game cost the team point after point. Jules golfed behind Pierre and Jean. With Jules being the strongest of the three, the idea was that he could pull off clutch shots when his brothers fell short. That wasn't happening.

A break tent with coffee and cookies awaited golfers at the tenth hole. Overlapping teams conferred. A rumor circulated that the Hardys (the most winning family in the tournament's history) were having yet another strong year. I learned from the women running the tent that Kenmare has hosted an increasingly popular Sisters Tournament since 2011.

When Jean—first in the Baviera order—showed up at the tent, he was smiling and breathing fast. "I'm playing well," he said. "I don't know for sure, but I think Pierre is, too." He grabbed a quick drink but didn't dally. He walked to the tenth hole's tee box, surveying the traps ahead of him. The tournament honors not only top teams but also outstanding individual performances, and Jean was shooting one of the best rounds of the tournament. If a team places, no team member can receive an individual award. The nine remaining holes would determine whether all three Bavieras would stand at the podium or just Jean.

Hole 16 decided everything. The difficult par 4 is not long—around 340 yards—but hook your tee shot, and you'll find yourself in the 18th's fairway. Err right and you're out of bounds. A bad second shot lands your ball in a creek. Teams that ace this hole can leap ahead in the rankings; teams that bomb it can fall just as far back. The way scoring works is that for each hole, the scores of the two brothers who shoot best get added to the sheet and the third score gets discarded. "The key is to dovetail," said Jean. "Hope that you're all covering each other on the different holes."

But this year, on the sixteenth, no one covered anyone. Only Jean managed to earn points—one. He shot a bogie.

It was many hours before the final team returned to clubhouse and scores were tallied, but the Bavieras knew their performance on hole 16 had scuttled any chance of a repeat championship. They finished sixth, barely in the prizes. By their standards, a disappointment.

The 180 brothers in attendance didn't go home after the trophies were distributed, though. Everyone stayed in the clubhouse well past midnight. As expected, everyone got lit. Again. This time, though, live performance replaced trash talking. In the center of the room, organizers set up a microphone. "Every year there's a sing-song," explained John May. Golfer after golfer strode to the makeshift stage to sing a traditional song or recite a poem. There wasn't an Irishmen in the room who didn't have a tune or a yarn up his sleeve. A handful of women had turned up, too. Over the weekend, daughters, mothers, and wives could be spotted in town, but had steered clear of the golf course. Now some sat in the clubhouse, drinking their own Guinnesses. Their presence—and sometimes breathtaking singing—turned the frat house into a poetry club.

The most prominent women in the lives of Jean, Pierre, and Jules had stayed home. "I haven't gone to Kenmare in five years. It's a boys thing," said Dearbhalla. Ronit Dhoukan, Jules' wife, also avoids the tournament, partly out of respect for the special bond her husband shares with his brothers. "When it comes to Kenmare it is not like X, Y, and Z. It is not Jean, Pierre and Jules. It's the three brothers. One whole. 'Brothership?' There is no word for that. The tournament defines their relationship as brothers."

Driving back to Dublin, no one made fun of Jules's magnetic wristband. Jean slept most of the way. When they pulled into the driveway, the family rushed the brothers. Paul rattled off the highlights of his soccer game. The girls started jumping and screaming. Erno adores his grandchildren, Dearbhalla told me. "The guys have a tough time with him," she said, "but Erno is great with the kids." Just a few months ago, Erno scheduled private golf lessons for Paul and Luke at Stade Français, the same club where Jules and Pierre learned to play the game so well.

Jean told me that the Brothers Tournament is the only time he plays golf all year. "I don't like playing with anybody else besides my brothers. Maybe I would, but they'd have to be really good and really cool. But they're not!" As everyone parted, no one made mention of next year's tournament. They didn't have to. It's already on the calendar.