Irish contingent eye glory in US

Ten Irish golfers still have their eyes on the big prize in US collegiate golf after the fields were set this week for the NCAA Regional championships.

Seven men and three women from Ireland remain in contention for a place at the national championships, the NCAAs, with the three women's regionals this week providing eight teams apiece for the main event in Daytona Beach, Florida, from May 22-25.

Ten teams apiece will emerge from next week's three men's regionals to contest the 2007 NCAA

Division I Men's Golf Championships in Williamsburg, Virginia, from May 30-June 2.

The men's Central Regional is sure to provide intense competition of a parochial nature as three Cork golfers vie for places at the Rich Harvest Farms course near Chicago. Muskerry golfer Niall Turner saw his University of Minnesota team pick up a No11 seeding among the 27 teams, while there is a No12 seeding for Southeastern Louisiana University, for whom Douglas pair Peter O'Keeffe and Aaron O'Callaghan have excelled this season.

Top seeds Alabama are also joined by defending national champions Oklahoma State and Southeastern Louisiana's Southland Conference conquerors Lamar, currently ranked third in the country.

The Irish trio of Seamus Power, Gareth Shaw and Cian McNamara, meanwhile, will go into the West Regional in Tempe, Arizona, in high spirits following the award of a fifth-placed seeding for their East Tennessee State side.

Also in that tournament is Portrush golfer Patrick McCrudden, who will represent No.23 Denver.

West Waterford's Power, the Atlantic Sun individual conference champion, will be buoyed further for having been named his conference's golfer of the month for April earlier this week. But ETSU

will tee it up in a stacked field also containing top-seeded Stanford, UCLA, UNLV and Pacific-Ten Champions Southern California.

Kilkeel?s Danielle McVeigh will be on a Texas A&M women's team seeded fifth like ETSU, in the NCAA Women's Golf East Regional, starting on Friday in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

A&M, which captured its second straight Big 12 championship title last month in Waco, Texas, is bidding to advance to its fourth straight NCAA finals.

Carlow sisters Karen and Tara Delaney, meanwhile will carry their good form from landing the Mid-Atlantic women's conference title for Kent State as the Ohio-based team compete in the central Regional in Michigan this weekend.