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Fifty not out — take a bow Noel

Six members of the triumphant Munster team in this week’s Interprovincial Championship at Royal Co Down are included in the field for the South of Ireland Championship starting at Lahinch this morning. And yet, they will all have to take a back seat behind the remarkable Ennis man, Noel Pyne, who is competing for the 50th successive year.

This amazing achievement is its own tribute to the Ennis man’s competitive qualities and remarkable consistency in keeping his handicap low enough to meet the increasingly difficult qualifying criteria. This year, the limit is 1.3, with Pyne setting up a first round meeting just before noon today against Gary Walsh from Mount Juliet. Noel, 66, claims that no matter what may happen, he will happily hang up his clubs for the ‘South’ having reached the 50th milestone.

This is the 111th “South” and has attracted many of the country’s finest modern-day amateur golfers. Waterford’s Kevin Phelan and Alan Thomas, two of the most valuable contributors to Munster’s success in the Interpros, are absentees but team-mates Niall Gorey, Gary O’Flaherty, Pat Murray, Gary Hurley, Geoff Lenehan and Ian O’Rourke will be there.

The lower handicappers are exempted from today’s first round which also includes John Greene, Carlow and Portmarnock, champion in 2010 and two other winners of greater vintage, Barry Reddan in 1987 and Peter Sheehan, 1993.

Of the many golfers from all four provinces who have made their way to West Clare for the championship, none has done more than Limerick Golf Club Secretary/Manager Pat Murray. The 2009 Irish Close champion is now 41 and reached the semi-finals no fewer than seven times without ever getting to the final.

Murray goes into action tomorrow against the winner of today’s clash of Munster boy star Jack Leacy and Liam Hutchinson of Royal Dublin.

The first quarter contains 2006 champion Simon Ward, 2009 winner Robbie Cannon, Muskerry’s Irish international Niall Gorey and Rory McNamara, who captured the North of Ireland title earlier this month. Pat Murray is in the second quarter along with Brian Casey, who performed outstandingly well in claiming the Munster Stroke Play Championship at Cork Golf Club last April; current Irish international Aaron Kearney and Andrew Hogan.

West Waterford youngster Gary Hurley enhanced his growing reputation with a superb senior interpro debut this week and will be hoping to further his claims for even greater honours. He needs to emerge from a section that features champion Stephen Walsh. Among those to watch at the bottom of the draw are talented Ulsterman Reeve Whitson; Jack Hume from Rathsallagh, winner of all four boys championship last year and 2010 beaten finalist Kelan McDonagh.

The championship returns to an match-play format this year with the 18 hole final set for Wednesday afternoon.

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