Golf Ireland’s Inter-Club events have been running since the end of April with every club in Cork competing in several different grades in Men’s and Women’s competitions.
This weekend the Men’s Irish Senior Cup takes place in Lee Valley with 16 teams heading to Ovens for 12 matches that will take place over Saturday and Sunday.
The Saturday/Sunday format was a feature for almost all Men’s competitions but an increase in the number of events and the limited availability of host courses meant that matches in most competitions are played on a home or away basis.
The first round of Senior Cup matches has already taken place, with all of the stronger Cork teams making it through.
There are a number of all Cork matches with Fota Island and Monkstown being one of the interesting ones.
The city club has been in a rebuilding phase with several young guns including Cian McDonnell and Ronan O’Keeffe now competing, while Fota Island were winners at this level recently and feature Irish Boys champion John Doyle as well as Morgan cain who has joined this year.
Kinsale and Macroom will face each other as will Douglas and Mallow while Cork are in action first and will face Thurles in the first match at 8am on Saturday.
There are two round scheduled for Lee Valley this weekend with the final four teams going forward to the Munster East semi-finals in Macroom on the 19th and 20th of July.
In the Women’s Senior Cup there are just five teams remaining. Cork face Tipperary in the final first round match which is to be completed this week. The winners will face Bandon in Macroom on the same weekend as the Men’s Senior Cup.
Douglas and Fota Island are already through in the other semi final.
It’s a busy week for Cork clubs with matches in several competitions taking place.
The third round of the Jimmy Bruen Shield is due for completion this week with nine of the last sixteen teams from Cork. The second round of the Fred Perry Seniors Fourball is also set to be completed this week.
Killarney will host the Men’s and Boy’s European Amateur Team Championship next month and Fota Island’s John Doyle has been named in the six man Irish team.
The Mitchelstown teenager is part of a strong outfit who will hope to make history on the 50th anniversary of the last staging of this competition in Killarney. Ireland are looking to bridge the gap back to 2008 when Shane Lowry was one of the stars of that victorious side.
They had gone back-to-back with Rory McIlroy also part of the team in 2007. Amateur Championship finalist Gavin Tiernan is another teenager to make the team which also see’s plenty of experience with Stuart Grehan, Matt McClean and Caolan Rafferty named.
Unfortunately there are no Cork golfers in the Boy’s team, Doyle was eligible but earned a place on the Men’s team.
Both events take place between 8 – 12 July, there will be two rounds of stroke play on the first two days before match play, with the eight teams who are still in contention for a medal then playing two foursomes and five singles, as the final takes place on Saturday.
Sara Byrne continued her new found form in the Czech Republic last week with a 40th place finish on the Ladies European Tour.
After an opening 70 Byrne was cruising into the Sunday of the 54 hole event, and even though she bogied the last in the second round she still got through with two shots to spare.
Byrne had a positive final round, she posted a four under par 68 which matched her LET low round of the year which she posted the previous week.
The prize money of just under €1,800 will cover the bills for the week, but more importantly the Douglas golfer has retained her position on the LET Order of Merit.
She is currently in the mid sixties in the OOM and well within the mark for retaining her card. Byrne is off to Germany this week for the Amundi German Masters which takes place outside Hamburg.
She will also be back in action in the US soon when she plays on the Epsom Tour.
