Hitting the Links with Louisville City Veteran Niall McCabe

To play for Louisville City FC is to have played golf with Niall McCabe.

And with regards to his golf game, the 33-year-old Irishman will tell you two things:

First: “I’m terrible but I think there’s nothing better.”

Second: “There’s no escaping. [Young players] have to sit beside me in a golf cart, and we’re terrible golfers, remember, so we’re probably out there for four or five hours.”

It’s par for the course for McCabe, who recently surpassed 200 appearances as Louisville City FC look to tee off against Major League Soccer’s Seattle Sounders FC Starfire Sports Complex in Tukwila, Washington in the Open Cup’s Round of 32 on Wednesday, May 8 (STREAM the game LIVE on usopencup.com.)

“I find that the new lads settle in that way,” he said. “We enjoy getting out on the golf course and spending time with each other off the field. I think golf is one of the best ways you can do it.”

His influence in the game growing in conjunction with Louisville City FC, McCabe is currently in the sweet spot where his experience and energy are sparking his club’s success and ambition.

Finding His Swing

Unable to earn a professional contract coming up in Dublin, McCabe took a chance on an NCAA Division II scholarship to a little-known college in Georgia in 2010.

“When I was playing back home nothing was really happening in terms of me moving or going anywhere,” he said. “It was just a bit stagnant, so the opportunity came for me to come out here and I said, ‘Why not. Nothing is happening here.’”

McCabe played four seasons at Young Harris College in Georgia along with stints with Knoxville Force (NPSL) in 2012 and 2013 and Chattanooga FC (NPSL) in 2014.

“It was somewhere new for me to go do the thing I love to do,” said McCabe, who finished second all-time with 32 goals and 31 assists in 62 matches for Young Harris.“It was obviously a big risk – I was 18 or 19 at the time, so to come out and play in the U.S. wasn't a certain thing, but now it seems like this was always the way it was meant to be.”

USOC School in Chattanooga

It was with Chattanooga FC that he got his first taste of the United States’ longest-standing club tournament – the U.S. Open Cup.

“We placed massive emphasis on the Open Cup at Chattanooga,” he remembered. “We had a really good team so we would come up against Wilmington Hammerheads or [Atlanta] Silverbacks and I just remember it being like, ‘If you win one more game you get Real Salt Lake in the next round’ or something like that. The stadiums were always packed.

“It was big, big drama early in the summer for me because we didn’t have a lot of time to train,” he added. “I just finished with college and then probably a week-and-a-half or two weeks later it was the Open Cup and it was on.

“There was a big emphasis on that because that’s where we all wanted to be,” he said.

“At that point, we were all in college and wanted to play at the next level. That’s why we were playing PDL or NPSL or whatever it was,” he said. “The Open Cup is all about putting yourself in the limelight in front of professional coaches to see how you stack up. And you want, just like any cup competition in the world, the big draw against an MLS team and to see how far you can go.

“I love it. I absolutely love it,” he added about the Cup

Persimmon Ridge Pest

In a town known for its baseball bats, an Irishmen who loves the area’s golf courses has settled into his surroundings after an unprecedented ten years playing for Louisville City FC in northern Kentucky.

“We moved up here when I signed ten years ago,” McCabe said. “Bought a house here, had two kids here. I have a nice rapport with the city. The people are great. Food is great. There’s lots of stuff to do. I really like it. Louisville is small enough to get around and there are a lot of good golf courses.”

He’ll take new players out to any one of the area’s more than 50 courses and do his best to get under their skin.

“It does help a lot because you get to talk about stuff away from football,” he said. “Whatever’s happening, and it just gives you a deeper personal connection to somebody and it makes you want to fight that much harder for them.

They’ll hit bad shots on the course in order to hit them flush on the pitch on gameday.

“I get that we all want to win but when you know someone’s ambitions or you know what someone’s going through, it just gives you that extra reason to want to dig deep for that person,” McCabe said. “I think we have a good team who really digs down.

“The man to the left, the man to the right, they really look after each other,” he added.

So really, he’s getting to know his teammates in order to be a better, more effective leader. His boss approves of the tactic too.

“I cannot speak enough about how valuable it is to have a player like Niall in our locker room,” said Louisville City FC coach – Open Cup Runner-up from his playing days – Danny Cruz. “He’s a player who understands the importance of culture here at Louisville City, and also knows what it takes to win.”

Playing Through

At 33 years-old, McCabe has more 90th-minute moments behind him than ahead of him but there are more reasons than ever to keep playing.

“With the quality of team that we have, I think there’s no reason why we can’t go on a run here [and] I’ve won a lot here but still, we’ve never won the Supporter’s Shield [given to the top team in the USL Championship during the regular season],” he said. “That’s a big goal for us. I think it gets overlooked in the U.S., but it’s something we’ve never won so that would be big for us to knock off this year.”

McCabe says they’ve been given everything they need from the club to succeed. Now it’s up to the players to go out and perform.

“Whether it’s great practice facilities and a great stadium, the recovery, the food, everything we have at our disposal,” he said. “There are no real excuses. It’s left on us at that point [and] I have to give credit to the owners who really, when they say they’re going to do something they mean it.

“For a USL team to have what we have, it’s ridiculous,” he added. “We have the training facility now and Eintracht Frankfurt is coming for 10 days in July, and they’re a top [German] Bundesliga team. So I’ve got to give credit to the ownership. The fact that a top Bundesliga side wants to spend a good chunk of their preseason here with the facilities that we have, it’s credit to everyone upstairs and the owners – we have the best of everything in the USL.”

The growth at the club has effectively turned what looked like a bogie into love, fore-ever.

“Personally, I don’t think there’s any substitute for playing so I’ll continue to work hard and train hard and play as best I can and try to play for as long as possible while I’m finishing off my [USSF] ‘B’ coaching license,” he said.

“I think the coaching will eventually come into play but for right now there’s nothing more beautiful than playing,” he said. “I’m looking out there right now and it’s sunny skies, the grass is perfect. I just love it.”

Dennis Pope writes about local sports for the SoCal Newspaper Group and serves in a communications role for both NISA Nation and the Southwest Premier League. Follow him at @DennisPope on X/Twitter.