Griffin’s South breakthrough

Four golfers whose names don’t really ring a bell for followers of the amateur game have qualified for this morning’s semi-finals of the Clare Coast Hotels South of Ireland Championship at Lahinch.

Eanna Griffin (Waterford), 21, meets Stuart Bleakley (Shandon Park), 19, in the first match off at 8.30am and they will be followed a quarter of an hour later by close friends Darragh Coghlan (Portmarnock), 25, and Richard Knightly (Royal Dublin), 26, with the final scheduled for 2pm.

Although Joe Brown, who won the event three times between 1932 and ’58, and Michael Burns, the 1980 champion, have brought the coveted trophy to Waterford in the past, Eanna Griffin would be the first member of Waterford Golf Club to do so. A 21 year-old from Slieveroe just outside the city, he was a relative latecomer to golf and made little or no impression in his early teen years before suddenly blossoming a couple of years ago.