This weekend sees the Munster Strokeplay Championships move to a relatively new venue by recent years with Ardnacrusha in the Mid-West the hosts for this weekend’s action. Jason O’Connor previews both days of action in the following piece.

 

Saturday

The Intermediate Mens grade gets proceedings going in Ardnacrusha on Saturday morning at 8.30am with Deerpark’s James Fleming and Cork duo Darren Temple (St Stephens) and Dylan Ahern (Collins) starting off the day. In all there are 62 finalists this year split into two sessions as morning turns to afternoon with three County Strokeplay champions in the field namely Brian O’Flynn (Limerick/Clare), Aaron Hogan (Tipperary) and Dan Broderick Jnr (Kerry).

 

Graham Bogue (Crosshaven) represents Cork as their County Strokeplay Runner-Up as Dan Broderick will be the first champion to tee-off in the third group alongside Eddie Hogan (St Stephens) and Alan Long (Collins). Brian O’Flynn from the host club plays at 9.30am as the former National Intermediate Strokeplay champion tees off alongside Michael Kirby of Larkspur Park and Sean O’Brien from St Annes.

 

Aaron Hogan is in the afternoon session of play at 12pm as he plays with Corkbeg’s Thomas Busteed Jnr and Bruff’s William O’Donovan. Graham Bogue tees off in the next group with Tipp Hills’ Paul Malone and Bruff’s Ger Kehoe his playing partners as in all there are five Ardnacrusha members in the field. Emmet Fitzgerald will be the first of these to tee-off in the morning session alongside Larkspur Park’s Michael McGrath and Raffeen Creek’s Bryan Murphy.

 

There are two three-balls then from the host club, Larkspur and St Annes with Kevin Flynn from the hosts being joined by Larkspur’s Darren McGrath and St Annes’ Colin Hennessy. John Mulqueen from the hosts then plays with Larkspur’s Ken Hayes and St Annes’ Paddy Barry as the other Ardnacrusha finalist in this grade- Cyril Bourke- plays with Hillview’s David Cahill and St Annes’ Chris O’Brien. The morning session concludes with Sean O’Connor (Hillview), Alan Duggan (St Annes) and Gus Hayes (Bruff) teeing off at 9.42am.

 

Starting the second session will be Sean Minogue (Riverdale), Alan Keating (St Annes) and Shaun Donegan (Bruff) at 11.30am with Robert O’Donnell (Tipp Hills), Damien Long (Collins) and Noel Stapleton (Lakeside) the last three players to tee-off for the first 36 holes at 12.18pm. They will be followed by the Ladies who tee-off from 2pm.

 

Starting will be the Seniors where there are five entries with Sarah O’Neill of Collins starting proceedings alongside Mary Quinn of Lakeside. The other group is a three-ball featuring Tipperary’s Breda White and Margaret Hennessy along with last year’s Intermediate winner on her home course in Fermoy, Ailish Sexton. There are 15 Intermediate entries with an 8/7 split between Cork and Tipperary for entries. Four of those entries are from Collins in Nicola Ahern, Patsy O’Donovan, Vera McCarthy and Nuala McNamara with three coming from Lakeside in the form of Frances Ryan, Bridget Shelley and Elaine Quinn.

 

The Junior competition meanwhile has 12 entries with the presence of Lorraine Creed after her win in the National Ladies O55’s Junior event in St Stephens last weekend maybe the most noteworthy in advance. She is joined by her Hillview club-mates in the field namely Gemma Martin and Veronica Anglim as Margaret O’Donovan of Bruff and Catriona O’Connor of Tralee will be others hoping for a strong showing on the day.

 

Sunday

A mix of Junior A and Junior B gets Sunday’s play going in Ardnacrusha as the host club are well represented in the Junior B with five finalists amongst the field of 18. Brian Andrews, Darren Mulqueen, Podge Ryan, John Kavanagh and Gerard Meehan will be representing the club on the day here as Kerry Champion in the grade Reece Sugrue of Tralee and Paul Hayes of Listowel are the Kingdom’s representatives here.

 

All of Cork’s representatives are from the east of the board bar one i.e. Rocklodge’s Alan Delaney with Crosshaven duo Martin and William Condon along with Claycastle’s John Long and Cunnigar of Waterford’s Patrick Walsh the other Cork Board representatives. Tipperary’s three finalists are Riverdale duo Donie McCleverty and Brendan Shinnors with Tipp Hills’ John Hanley the other Tipp player on the day.

 

In the Junior A itself Ardnacrusha have four, all in the first four groups, as Kieran Bermingham, Eugene McNamara, Patrick CC Ryan and Brendan Moloney all represent the hosts on the day. Moloney got through as a result of winning the Limerick/Clare Strokeplay and he is the only County Strokeplay winner in this section with Eddie Delaney (Cork) and Brian Glasheen (Tipperary) here after finishing as runners-up in their respective counties. National Junior Mens Matchplay winner Gerry O’Connor of Larkspur Park is amongst Sunday’s field as Riverdale (Seamus Gleeson, Gerard Tuite and Peter Dunning) and Bishopstown (Colm and Tim O’Connor alongside Delaney) have three finalists each amongst the Junior A field of 30.

 

At 12pm on Sunday the Senior Mens event will get going with an interesting feel to the field itself this year. Fermoy’s Daithi Sexton defends the title he won on home turf last year and he tees-off in the third last group alongside James Cleary and Bruff’s John Farrell at 1.18pm. The second and third groups to tee-off on Sunday feature some fairly big names, Bryan Delaney of ESB having Munster Matchplay winner Jason Cregan and last year’s National Matchplay winner Stephen O’Reilly as his playing partners for the first 36 holes.

 

Following them with be the holders of the two National Singles titles at present in Ray Murphy (Matchplay) and Stephen Shoer (Strokeplay) with Tralee’s Jason O’Regan playing alongside them. Ray won the Cork Strokeplay of course in the aftermath of his National Matchplay success in Larkspur with John McGrath (Kerry) and Shoer (Tipperary) the other County Champions in the field. James Ryan was runner-up in the Limerick/Clare Strokeplay as he plays in the final three-ball with Rob O’Donoghue of Douglas and Eoghan Aylward of Hillview.

 

John McGrath has Bruff’s Liam O’Donovan and Majestic’s Paul Collins as his playing partners as National Matchplay runner-up DJ Lynch of Tipp Hills plays with Brian Hartnett of Douglas and Gavin Carroll of Tralee. Local interest will certain on Michael Darcy, Pacelli Darcy and Ger Ryan. Michael plays with his namesake Conway from Tralee along with Barry Morrissey while his dad Pacelli has Majestic’s David Daly and Castleisland’s Aidan O’Connor as playing partners. Ger Ryan meanwhile plays with Declan Freeman fresh from his runners-up finish at the O55’s in St Stephens and Listowel’s Killian O’Gorman.

 

Gerard Kehoe, Eoin Walsh and Paul Sweeney get it all going on the day and it will be very interesting to see if natural brilliance or local knowledge amongst the Limerick/Clare contingent will be the deciding factor in determining all the winners this weekend.

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