Cork got its double after all. Not on the sacred soil of Croke Park in high summer, but on home turf in the shadow of September with hosts Douglas Golf Club claiming a famous AIG All-Ireland Senior Cup double at the expense of Lahinch and Rosslare.
No club had claimed both the men’s and the women’s senior titles in the same year since Royal Portrush in 1979. That’s a 46-year gap closed. The men’s title was a first in the club’s history. A 116-year wait ended. Oh, and the women were going back-to-back.
Quite the weekend.
If this is a feat that will stand out in the history books then the bare statistics still won’t do justice to the manner in which it all unfolded because there was a point mid-afternoon on Sunday when Douglas looked like they might end up with nothing but the bar tab.
The women’s decider was tight enough throughout the afternoon with two of the five singles matches decided early – and one point earned apiece – but there came a stage when the team from Clare were up in the other three.
Lahinch had beaten Douglas in the final in dramatic circumstances three years ago. That got a mention after the semi-finals were done with in the morning. So did the semi-final Douglas won last year when they looked down and out before turning it around.
Jack Murphy and Justin Dennehy of Douglas Golf Club celebrate winning. Pic: ©INPHO/Tom Maher
The message was simple: one shot, one hole, could change everything.
In the end, it fell to the home team’s youngest player, teenager Claudia O’Donoghue, to come up with the winning point. Her game with Sarah Cunningham went all the way down 18, with the teams tied at two-apiece, and the youngster did the needful.
A superb seven-iron into the green set her up for the winning point.
“Unbelievable. Just blown away,” said Douglas team captain Kate MacCann. “We didn’t anticipate this and the crowds here are incredible, as you can imagine. The girls had a tough, tough match and it didn’t look good.
“The whole way it looked like Lahinch were going to do it but then our lucky star Claudia comes down the 18th and does the business. It was amazing. We had a full team who all contributed and we wouldn’t be here but for all of them.
“That’s what makes it such a special team.”
One title in the bag, but a second looked unlikely.
Rosslare looked as good as gone. So much so that Douglas team captain Don Coughlan found himself thinking about the night ahead. There would still be celebrations, of course, but he couldn’t help thinking what might have been had the men followed the women’s lead.
It was pure wishful thinking at that point.
How bad did it look? Well, Coughlan scanned the terrain at one point, with the teams well down their back nines, and saw that Rosslare were three up in the lead match, then two up, four up and two up in the others.
Golf Ireland president Michael Evans said what everyone was thinking in the presentations afterwards. Douglas, he said, were dead and buried at that point. Then he involved the name of Lazarus. That about covered it.
Claudia O’Donoghue, Jemma Barry and Shannon Burke of Douglas Golf Club celebrate winning. Pic: ©INPHO/Tom Maher
“It was dead and gone really, but they hung in,” said Coughlan who echoed MacCann with words like extraordinary and unbelievable to sum up the manner of the achievement. “It’s a credit to them. Pick away one hole at a time and it turned.
“I genuinely feel sorry for Rosslare because that is a rotten way to lose. That is a horrible way to lose. They were in control of it but our guys hit them with birdies at the right time and golf is a funny old game.”
Rosslare would still secure the first two points, with a comfortable 4&3 and a 3&2. There was no more room for error, or delay, but Peter O’Keeffe, Jack Murphy and Barry O’Connell stuck at it with Mark Whelan, Ian Lynch and Mark Mullen.
It was O’Keeffe’s win on the first extra hole against Whelan that marked the definitive turning point. The Douglas golfer pumped his fist when his putt disappeared on the 1st green and that sent a wave of people and momentum back to 18.
Murphy had already claimed a 2&1 to level the scores by the time O’Connell approached the last. As with O’Donoghue and the women, the winning of this one would fall to a teenager, the youngest player on the team.
O’Keeffe’s approach to the 18th not long before had owed a little to fortune. O’Connell’s owed far more again, his second shot from a wayward drive bouncing on the hill to the right of the green and then rolling onto the green and to maybe 12 feet from the pin.
The putt that followed was close enough to be conceded and then came the surge.
The kids had done alright.
“The amount of effort going on in junior golf throughout the country is huge,” said Coughlan who also tipped his hat to Murphy who stayed home an extra day to play when college in the States called. “In this golf club they have great time for the younger players.
“A huge amount of members put time and effort into minding them and bringing them out so it does come through. For Barry and Claudia today it was fascinating to see that the two youngest on the two teams finished things off.”
