Played at Ballyliffin Golf Club (Gashedy) on Saturday 12th February 2011 Par 72 S.S.S 72
1st Nett Kieran Martin (13) Strabane G.C. 69
2nd Nett Keith Lapsley (5) Dunfanaghy G.C. 71 b.o.t.
3rd Nett Odran McGettigan (24) Strabane G.C. 71 b.o.t.
4th Nett Stephen McCay (5) StrabaneG.C. 72 b.o.t
5th Nett John Lewers (13) Faughan Valley G.C. 72
6th Nett Danny McLaughlin (14) Letterkenny G.C. 73
1st Gross Damien Mooney (scr) unattached. 73
2nd Gross Michael McGinley (scr) Grange G.C. 76 B.O.T.
3rd Gross Connor Mallon (scr) Nairn/Portnoo G.C. 76 B.O.T.
4th Gross Justin MacLochlainn (2) North West G.C. 76
5th John Harding (3) North West G.C. 78 B.O.T
6th Gross Sean Forbes (4) Strabane G.C. 78
The following got 2’s and will receive 4 golf balls each K.Lapsley,J.Harding,S.McCay,O.McGettigan,P.MacLochlainn,K.Doherty,B.McFadden,B.Corry, C.MacLochlainn.
In a re arranged competition the Alliance played Glashedy Course in Ballyliffin on Saturday. What a lovely day it turned out to be .The sun shone and while other courses in the area were closed because of frost Ballyliffin was eminently playable.
The club are deserving of the highest praise for the on-going work on the first nine .The captain of the club this year is the redoubtable Colm O’Carroll and under his leadership and vision the club even in these difficult financial times are pressing on with the programme to upgrade the course.
The architect of this is Pat Ruddy who along with the late Tom Craddock originally laid out the course .The changes to the bunkering and the filling in of bunkers now deemed obsolete shows the determination of the club to go higher than their present ranking of 16th in the 100 best courses in Ireland.
The other point of note is the very evident skill of the Green keepers in carrying out this work but then they are used to it having done the same job on the back nine last year.
To the golf……. The Gross competition was extremely competitive as after nine there were three players on level par indeed after 11 Justin MacLochlainn had pulled ahead but then 2 bogies and a double at the 17th put him out of contention .There was a similar story from Sean Forbes and he also slipped away. The winner Damien Mooney used his prodigious length to good use in reducing the par 5’s to fours saw him in ahead of Michael McGinley who had made a late surge to come through the field .Connor Mallon will rue a double bogey at the last which saw him relegated to third.
In the nett prizes. While Letterkenny members dominate last week this week was the turn of Strabane members and the toast of Ballycolman was Kieran Martin, who won on the break of tie from 2 others .This was Kieran’s first Alliance victory. His card was a model of consistency all pars or bogies unlike those he beat on break of tie that were unable to keep the dreaded double bogies at bay.
The hard luck story belonged to Faughan Valley member John Lewers who must have thought he had the competition won when he stood on the 17th tee .He hit his drive very and I mean very far right a, found the ball but many tribulations later he holed out for an ugly 10 on this admittedly difficult par 5 .He was undaunted however and he pared the 18th for a par and was level par for his round.
Even more hard to take was the player who totalled his back nine and wrote it opposite the 18th ,so instead of recording a 4 he recorded a 41 .A salutatory lesson demonstrating that the job isn’t done until the paper work is finished
THE NEXT COMPETITION WILL BE HELD on 19th February 2011 in Rosapenna Golf Club.
End
