Irish seniors battle in testing conditions to stay in title hunt

CHAMPIONS Ireland are ideally poised to figure among the leading four countries who will remain in contention for the European Seniors Amateur Championship after today’s second round at Shannon Golf Club.

Arthur Pierse, the former Walker Cup player from Tipperary, shot a splendid round of 74 yesterday in spite of dropping four shots in three holes midway through his second nine. And with the rest of the Irish side performing consistently, home team captain Tommie Basquill was quietly confident that they would remain in contention for a second successive title going into tomorrow’s match play rounds.

Unfortunately, atrocious weather stretching from the starting time of 7.30am until 3.30pm or so threatened to derail the tournament altogether. In spite of the best efforts of the Shannon ground staff, play was suspended for almost two hours in mid-morning as greens, fairways and bunkers flooded. Preferred lies were in operation and three bunkers had to be declared ground under repair but all were loud in their praise of the manner in which the Shannon staff coped with the deluge.

Ireland’s Adrian Morrow struck the first shot of the championship and to his horror saw it drift out of bounds. The hole cost him a double bogey six and he dropped two strokes at the 16th so the Irish Seniors champ was happy with a four over par 76.

After a round that took him seven-and-a-half hours to complete, he said: “This was as bad as I’ve ever had to play in and it was very sad when you think of the hard work that has gone into bring this championship to Ireland.”

It was just as well that things improved considerably in the late afternoon and although it wasn’t possible to complete each of the 40 matches by nightfall, the organising committee are confident of getting back on schedule by tonight.

At this point, the leaderboard indicates that England, Scotland (for whom Derek Murphy shot a best of the day 71), Ireland and German would be the four nations to contest the semi-finals.

The weather delay enabled Arthur Pierse to catch the second heat of the Olympic womens 200 metres swimming race on television and was elated to see his 22-year-old niece Annamay Pierse, representing Canada, finish 2nd and so qualify for the semi-finals. She is a daughter of Dr Pat Pierse, who is, of course, a member of the distinguished Tipperary family, and lives in Edmonton.

“It was great to see her do so well and we’re now very hopeful that she can win a medal,” said Uncle Arthur. “It sent me out in a good frame of mind and I was doing nicely at one under par for the first 12 holes. But at the 13th, my drive plugged deep in a bunker and that cost me a double bogey. Things got worse after three putting the 14th and duffing a chip at 15, both for bogey but I regrouped well, getting down in chip and putt for pars at the 16th and 17th before reaching the 18th with a drive and three iron and two putting for a birdie. I’m happy enough with 74.”

Next best of the Irish was Morrow, 76 followed by Liam MacNamara, 77; Maurice Kelly and Hugh Smyth, both 78, and John Carroll, 80.