Local star Sugrue awaits Open invite

HOMETOWN pro Daniel Sugrue is still sweating on the final available invitation to next week’s Irish Open, presented by Discover Ireland 2011.

Seven invitations have already been issued to the prestigious European Tour event, which starts at Killarney Golf & Fishing Club next Thursday.

Already on the entry list as invitees is Scott Pinckney, the US amateur and childhood friend of Rory McIlroy who is a leading collegiate golfer at Arizona State University and played in last month’s US Open.

Also invited are Sweden’s Rikard Karlberg and an Irish quintet of Niall Kearney, Simon Thornton, Colm Moriarty, Mark Murphy and Gary Murphy.

Killarney man Sugrue, 33, is attached to the golf club and has a couple of British Open appearances on his resumé. He played last year’s Irish Open on his home course and this year is riding high in the Irish PGA Order of Merit as well as scoring a top-10 finish at the Audi Cork Irish Masters at Fota Island on the EuroPro Tour earlier this month. Irish Open tournament director Ben Watson explained the decision on the destination of the final invitation to next week’s European Tour event would not be made until Monday morning.

“Dan has applied and as in all these things, there are a number of matters to take into consideration,” Watson told the Irish Examiner. “There are a number of other pros on the list as well. We’ll see what happens after the weekend and then we’ll take a balanced view on all requests.”

Watson hinted, though, that Sugrue’s chances rested on events in this weekend’s European Tour event, the Nordea Scanidinavian Masters in Stockholm.

“We keep one back for post-this weekend, for no particular reason other than we never want to be embarrassed in the week of a tournament if someone decides they want to play and we don’t have space.

“So we tend to keep one in our locker, as it were, until Monday morning.”