He emigrated to Oxford from Ireland in the 1950s with just £2 to his name.

He retired in 1989 and started doing “bits of jobs up at the golf club”.

“Then one day someone said to me, ‘Why don’t you get yourself a set of clubs and we’ll have a go start playing golf?’,” he continued.

“This was the first time I’d ever got a club in my hand.”

He said he gradually got “better and better” and had even been close to hitting a hole-in-one.

“The pin was leaning one way because of the wind, the ball stopped up against the pin and never fell into the hole,” he said, adding it had been “disappointing”.

He continued: “It’s like a disease – everybody wants. It’s a lot of luck.”

He said he started practicing for his challenge “shortly after Christmas”.

Oxford Golf Club was founded in 1875 and was the original club of Oxford University.

The 143-acre facility features an 18-hole course, parts of which were originally designed by architect and champion golfer James Braid before golf architect Harry Colt redesigned it to today’s layout in 1923.