Tralee's McCarron wins National Intermediate Strokeplay title
Wednesday July 28 2010
LAST weekend was a memorable one for Pitch and Putt in the county at the National Gents Strokeplay Championships in Ryston, Newbridge, Co Kildare as Tralee's Declan McCarron took pride of place winning the National Intermediate Strokeplay title on Saturday.
On Sunday clubmate Jonathon Goodall came very close to winning the senior title just missing out on a play-off for the title by a single shot.
Declan's magical day began with a round of eight under par for his first eighteen holes while he followed up with seven under par to post a 36 hole score of 15 under par, two ahead of his nearest challenger Paul Griffin from the Old County club in Dublin.
Declan held his nerve over the subsequent eighteen holes picking up four birdies on the first nine holes before heading to the final hole with a two stroke lead over his nearest challenger at that stage Ciaran Boland from Tullamore and three putts for victory.
He only needed one though as he holed out for a 54 hole total of 141, 21 under par and a well deserved first national title for both the Listowel native and the first for the county in six years since Deerpark's Derry McCarthy won the National Matchplay in 2004.
McCarron dedicated the win to playing colleagues Damien Fleming, Kevin McCarron and Monty Galvin.
The other two players from the county in the grade didn't quite scale Declan's heights, Castleisland's Aidan O'Connor finishing on six under while Gavin O'Carroll finished on one under par.
After Declan's performance hopes were high for the Seniors on Sunday and Jonathon Goodall did not disappoint.
After carding a 36 hole total of 17 under par, he hit a bit of a birdie blitz in the play-off reeling off 12 birdies to bring in a score of 29 under par that gave him the clubhouse lead until both St Bridgets of Kildare's Eddie Carey and John Walsh from Cork both brought in scores of 30 under par.
Carey eventually won the playoff for the title but Jonathon can be immensely proud of finishing third overall in such an illustrious field and improve by one position on his fourth place finish of last year.
Deerpark's Damien Fleming finished in a tie for eighth place on 24 under par, Tralee's Jason O'Regan just missed out on making the play-off on the countback with 15 under while his club-mates Des Hurley and JP Fletton both finished with 12 under par and Jamie Blake brought in nine under par.
Despite their best efforts both Deerpark's Paudie Looney and Tralee's Aidan O'Sullivan missed out on the playoff in the Junior grade.
Closer to home the final place on the Kerry InterCounty team was decided last Tuesday evening as Castleisland's Mike Browne defeated Des Hurley in a 36 hole play-off by seven shots to join Damien Fleming, Jason O'Regan, Jonathon and Darren Goodall as well as Jamie Blake on the six person Kerry team for the Munster and National Championships.
The County U-16 Strokeplay Championships also saw a clean sweep for Deerpark in Castleisland last Tuesday afternoon as Kieran Looney led home his namesakes O'Keeffe and Murphy with 16 under par, one shot better that their respective totals of 15 under par each.
Jason O'Brien won the 14-16 prize with 12 under par while Conor McCarthy won the 10-13 prize with eight under par.
- Jason O'Connor
