Pitch & Putt Ireland2016 PJ Bell Preview
A look ahead to tomorrow in Lakeside
45 teams have entered tomorrow’s PJ Bell event in Lakeside and Communications and Press Officer Jason O’Connor takes a look ahead to tomorrow’s event in Templemore which gets underway at 9am.
IT’S kind of fitting in one way that having concluded our 2015 season in Lakeside with the National Schools Finals that we start 2016 at the same venue. This is the first staging of the PJ Bell event outside of Cork since 2011 when it was held in Cunnigar. Last year’s event in ESB was won by the Ferbane trio of Sean Robinson, Ger Ryan and Mary McKenna as they had just under two shots to spare from Laytown’s Dom and Jennifer Green Scully as well as Gareth McLoughlin in second. Both teams are entered again tomorrow, the Ferbane side one of five entries from their club as Laytown have another two entries in the form of Paddy and Ann Bird along with Nikitha G. Scully and the team of Oliver Healy, Patrick Orange and Kathleen O’Neill.
The host club have seven entries with National Intermediate Ladies Strokeplay Champion Mary Quinn leading the way alongside Patrick Quinn and Sean McCormack in the first side to tee-off tomorrow. One of the prize-winners from last year in Lakeside, the Tipperary Hills combination of Michael Brennan, Jess White Nugent and Eddie Tuohy are entered There are three teams each entered from other Tipperary clubs Hillview and Riverdale making it a grand total of 14 from the Premier County, just under one-third of the entire field. Cunnigar of Waterford return this year with a total of seven entries themselves with their 2014 winners Paddy Noonan and Jacinta O’Mahony joined by Mary O’Neill who won with Paddy in 2011 on home turf when it was a four player team. Also amongst the entries from Cunnigar is National Junior Gents Strokeplay Champion Paul O’Riordan as he plays with Michael Aherne and Michelle O’Connell.
In terms of the Cork entries (of which there are three) the Douglas/Ballinlough combination of Alf and Geraldine Hanrahan along with Brian Downey is probably the most interesting as they have finished as runners-up in this event twice, back in 2013 and 2014 when the event was held in Douglas. Dublin and Kildare are two other counties to have entries for this event. The Dublin sides are CPM’s Jack Higgins, John O’Keeffe and Theresa King and Ringcommons’ Sean Brennan, Kit Callaghan and Elaine Stack. McDonagh’s entries are Joe Ronan, Gary Connolly and Emma O’Hanlon along with Paddy Phillips, Anthony Ryan and Amber Martin. Bellewstown, Gaeil Colmcille, Ratoath and Royal Meath join Laytown in giving Meath a sizeable total of 12 teams entered in the event.
By a Three Ball Scramble’s nature the scoring is generally tight and it shouldn’t be any different tomorrow around Lakeside in what we all hope will be a good start to the year on the playing front at National level.
We wish all teams taking part the best of luck tomorrow in Lakeside tomorrow as well as a safe journey to the venue. Updates will be available on the website throughout the day.
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