Four Irish in Open line-up

IRELAND will have four contenders in the Open Championship starting at Royal St George’s, Sandwich, Kent, on Thursday.

None of our fourteen players contending for places in the qualifying rounds at four different venues yesterday came through what turned out to be a very daunting exercise only seven survived at each of the courses.

That leaves Padraig Harrington, Darren Clarke, Paul McGinley and Gary Murphy to carry our hopes into a championship offering a record stg£700,000 to the winner, with £8,700 going to the worst-placed player who qualifies into the weekend and even £2,000 for the man finishing 156th and last.

Not that any such monetary considerations were in the mind of Mark O'Sullivan, the 22-year-old Galwayman who recently captured the Irish Amateur Close Championship at Tramore. O'Sullivan had given himself every chance with a sparkling 68 at Princes on Sunday, but yesterday the inevitable nerves crept in and he slumped to a 75.

Walker Cup team candidate Colm Moriarty returned a very worthy 69 at Littlestone but had already been undone by his 73 on Sunday. Moriarty missed out on the play-off by two, O'Sullivan by three. With so few places available, anything worse than a couple of shots under regulation just wasn't good enough.

A case in point was Costantino Rocca, the Italian who lost a play-off for the Open to John Daly in 1995. He shot 69, 67 over the par 71 North Foreland course, but missed out on a play-off by two strokes as the South African Hennie Otto shot the lights out with scores of 65 and 63 to finish 14 under on 128.

The story of the day belonged to Ian Woosnam. He was one of five in a play-off for three places at Princes and went through in considerable style by holing a chip from seventy feet at the first tie hole.

"It's about time I had a change of luck," said the little Welshman.