Pitch & Putt IrelandNational Seniors Strokeplay & U-16 Matchplay Day Two Report
Carry & Buckley win in Kilbeggan, Ryan & Minogue win in McDonagh
2018 National Seniors Strokeplay
2018 National Under-16 Matchplay
Communications & Press Officer Jason O’Connor reports on a day of celebration for Evan Carry and Jack Buckley at the National U-16 Matchplay in Kilbeggan with Frank Ryan and Sean Minogue the winners of the National 0-55’s Strokeplay in McDonagh.
U-16 Matchplay
COMPLETING the clean sweep of singles titles at Leinster and National U-16 level, reigning National Boys Strokeplay Champion Evan Carry of Castletown powered to victory today in Kilbeggan despite trailing after nine holes in both his Semi-Final & Final encounters. His match against inaugural winner in 2016 Glenn Towler of St Annes saw him trail by 1up after the first quarter but a birdie blitz in the remainder of his First Round saw him turn the score into a 6up deficit before he had enough in hand to hold off a late fightback by Glenn in winning 4&2.
Shea Fennell led pretty much all the way in his Semi-Final with last year’s Plate winner Aaron Roche of St Stephens turning a 1up lead after nine holes into a 3up lead turning. The Parteen player’s advantage was as much as 4up with nine to play but Roche did keep the match alive until the 17th hole where Fennell won out by 2&1. That meant that we would have a novel meeting of the Munster and Leinster U-16 Matchplay winners for 2018 in the decider as Shea took an early 1up lead in the battle for the Helen Persson Cup. Evan came good again though before the start of the second round in going on to lead 2up before taking a decisive grip on the game in the third quarter by going 6up with nine to play.
He won the 10th and 11th holes to make sure of his win by 8&7 and win a third National Singles title to go with the Strokeplay wins of 2016 and 2017. The Plate Competition meanwhile saw some success for the host county and Collinstown’s club as the third place finisher in Evan’s group yesterday, Jack Buckley, came away with the win after defeating Munster Strokeplay winner Patrick Mitchell and Douglas’ Liam McGrath in his two matches today. Although Jack led 2up after the first 9 Patrick drew the match level after 18 holes before Jack went in front again 3up with nine to play. Three further wins but Jack into the Final by 6&4 as Liam defeated Luke Murphy of Seapoint in his Semi-Final 2&1.
Liam had advantages of 1up (9 & 18 Holes) and 2up (27) over Luke before making sure of his win at the 17th hole. The Final was dominated by Jack however as advantages of 2up (9 Holes) and 4up (18 Holes) gave him the platform for a lead of 5up with nine to play before 8&6 was his eventual winning margin.
0-55’s Strokeplay
A SECOND title for Frank Ryan in the Senior Gents and Sean Minogue of Riverdale going one better than last year in the Intermediate Gents were the main headlines from McDonagh’s remaining two grades today as Ryan was part of a second ‘1-2-3’ for Kildare in the Senior Gents after a similar finish in the Junior Ladies event on Saturday. Ryan was the fourth winner from a Kildare club this weekend as he had two strokes to spare over Joe Ronan from the host club in claiming the title.
Ryan had rounds of seven and nine under par in recording his winning score of 16 under par as Ronan shot rounds of six and eight under in claiming second on 14 under. That was a further two clear of Sean Harkins who claimed third from two time winner Anthony Malone of Lucan with a good second round of nine under par after both players had shot 12 under par for the tournament. Malone had two six under par rounds for his 12 under score. Frank Ryan now joins Malone, Pat Greene and William Sheridan as the four multiple winners of the grade in its 15 year history. The Nett prize went to Raffeen Creek’s Richard Jordan meanwhile as a score of 11 under par and a handicap of three helped him to a Nett total of 91.
The Intermediate saw just three shots separate the top three but Sean Minogue made up for last year’s loss in Cloghogue in a playoff by firing rounds of four and eight under par to emerge victorious with a score of 12 under par, one ahead of Tullamore’s John Fleming who started well with an opening round of eight under before finishing the tournament on 11 under par. Lakeside’s Anthony Maher was third meanwhile with rounds of six and four under par for a tournament score of 10 under par as the Nett prize had to come down to the Back Nine to decide the winner.
That was Stan McManaman from the host club as his 87 was equal to that of Noel Leonard of Lucan along with the Back 18 before the Back 9 was the determining factor in Stan’s favour.
Click on the scoreboards and brackets for details of how it fared overall for everyone in both venues this weekend.
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