With an area of more than 770 square miles, Offaly is the largest county in the Midlands Region of Ireland. The Esker Riada, a series of glacial sand and gravel ridges, runs through the county, with a sizeable proportion of the remaining landscape dominated by peat and bogland.

There are only five golf clubs from Offaly in membership of the Golfing Union of Ireland, the most senior of which is Tullamore, founded in 1886. The club was given the honour of hosting the annual inter-club Cups and Shield Finals in 2009, when teams from Galway, Malone, Kilkenny, Nenagh and Letterkenny lifted the trophies on offer.

The newest club in Offaly, Esker Hills, was formed in 1994 and it was one of its members, Shane Lowry, who made his name as a top amateur when he first won the Irish Close Championship in 2007, then the West of Ireland Championship and North of Ireland Championship the following year. To top it all off, he then claimed the Irish Open in 2009, becoming only the third amateur to ever win a European Tour event.