Kearney to battle on as bogey blues end card hopes

NIALL KEARNEY’S hopes of winning his European Tour card evaporated when he fired a disappointing 76 to slip to joint last place entering the final round of the Qualifying School Finals in Spain.

The 22-year old Dubliner went into the fifth round on the Stadium Course at PGA Golf de Catalunya three shots outside the top 30 who will win promotion to main tour next year.

But he carded three birdies, three bogeys and two costly bogeys in a four-over-par effort to slip back to tied 69th on level par, nine strokes outside the card positions and 16 strokes behind England’s Simon Wakefield (67) and Spain’s Carlos del Moral (65), who lead the field by a stroke.

“I have just played sloppy golf the last few days,” said Kearney, who missed six months of his rookie season on the Challenge Tour following shoulder surgery. “I’ve had five double bogeys in the last two days and that’s mainly been down to driving the ball poorly.

“The swing has been a little bit off and I haven’t really had the bounce of the ball and been stuck behind a few trees with no swing. But I’ll have a full Challenge Tour card next year, which is what I had this year before I had the operation. I’ll just go out tomorrow and give it a rip and see what happens.”

Kearney started on the back nine but followed a bogey at the par-three 11th with a double bogey at the 14th, after a poor drive. And while he birdied the easy par-five 15th and then holed a 10 footer for another birdie at the first, his hopes of challenging for a card suffered a blow when he missed a three-footer for par at the fourth and then double bogeyed the par-three fifth after pulling his four iron into a lake.

He almost eagled the sixth, spinning his nine iron back to within an inch of the cup to set up an easy birdie but he handed that shot back with a soft bogey at the ninth and finished the day tied for last place with England’s James Robinson on level par.