Quirke holding tough as favourites fall away

Cork’s Michael Quirke maintained his strong bid, at sunny Malone yesterday, to land his first All-Ireland Seniors’ Amateur Open Championship title and goes into today’s final action with a three shots cushion.

Quirke from Doneraile, after an opening sub-par 70, was six shots worse in the second round but still stays top of the leaderboard ahead of Scottish challenger Ken Bruce and Tom Tyrrell from The Heath, as many of the fancied candidates have fallen away.

Among them is the defending champion Adrian Morrow (Portmarnock) who is seven shots adrift of the leader and, barring an unlikely Quirke collapse today, it would seem that the tall Dubliner will hand over the trophy.