Galway bidding for elusive treble

GALWAY GOLF CLUB go in search of a rare treble at Rosslare this week when they contest the finals of the Bulmers Irish Senior and Junior Cups and Barton Shield.

They have a particularly busy start to this marvellous end-of-season festival today when they take on Ballybunion in the semi-finals of the Barton Shield and Clonmel at the penultimate stage of the Junior Cup.

The Barton Shield quartet of this year’s Irish Close Championship runner-up Eddie McCormack, John Neary, Joe Lyons and former Close champion Mark O’Sullivan kick off the programme at 10.30am hopeful of going on to emulate the sides who captured the national inter-club foursomes championship in 1957, 72 and 99. They do so against Ballybunion, whose name has yet to appear on the magnificent old trophy, but whose quartet of former South of Ireland champion Peter Sheehan, JD Guiney, Eoin O’Connor and Hannes Boch has derived much confidence from the manner in which they squeezed out wins over Tramore and Limerick in the recent Munster finals at Muskerry.