Three Irish amateurs to watch in 2017
Beaten in the semi-finals of the Amateur Championship last summer, 21-year-old McBride from The Island has made huge improvements since he began his scholarship at Wake Forest University in 2014. A World Amateur Team Championship bronze medalist with Jack Hume and Stuart Grehan, expect a big win from the Malahide man.
While young players like Kevin LeBlanc, Rowan Lester, Sean Flanagan, Conor Purcell and the impressive young Kilkenny man Mark Power are expected to continue on an upward curve, 23-year-old Tullamore man Grehan is hoping to make the Walker Cup side and it will be fascinating to see if he can push his game to new heights in 2017 and make himself an automatic choice for the R&A selectors.
Irish women’s golf is bursting with talent, and while we’ll be watching to see if Jessica Ross, Annabel Wilson and Mairead Martin close the gap on Leona Maguire and Olivia Mehaffey, Killarney 16-year-old Valerie Clancy has the talent to build on this year’s five-shot triumph in the Munster Championship and team glory in the Girls’ Home Internationals.
