Second day write-off as rain plays havoc at South

Charlie Mulqueen

The kind of torrential rain the country has been crying out for after many weeks of drought arrived on the west coast yesterday — and duly played havoc with the 117th South of Ireland Championship, sponsored by Pierse Motors.

More than half of the 150 competitors had yet to complete their second rounds when relatively mild rain that had fallen from around 12 noon was replaced by a torrential downpour that flooded several greens and forced the championship committee to suspend and then cancel the day’s play.

It was then felt that the best way to handle the situation was to use the completed scores from Wednesday’s first qualifier as the yardstick to decide who should comprise the 64 players who go forward for this morning’s scheduled first round (proper) of match-play.

While many players and observers were happy with this call and several actually applauded, there were understandably those who felt otherwise.

“The options were to see how many had finished today’s round and, with only 48% of rounds completed [72 of 150], there was no likelihood of getting the others around today or at a reasonable time tomorrow,” explained chairman Padraig McInerney.

We also had to look at weather conditions for tomorrow and it was felt that we would have a struggle then as well and it was best to abandon play completely from today and go with the top 64 scores from round one.

The play that was possible was interesting for the manner in which it demonstrated to the country’s finest amateur golfers that there is a world of difference between taking on the famous Lahinch links on a sunny, balmy day like Wednesday and tackling it with a 25-mile-per-hour wind blowing in off the Atlantic.

There were 16 sub-70 scores and 35 beat the par of 72 in the first round, but the change in the conditions meant it was a very different situation yesterday.

Mark Power, son of former internationals Eddie and Eileen Rose, and 2017 East of Ireland champion Reece Black, set the pace with spectacular seven under par rounds of 65. But they were among those who struggled with yesterday’s change in the elements, though neither was ever in the slightest danger of failing to get among the 64 qualifiers.

Nevertheless, Power admitted to being extremely angry following a mistake at the 17th hole.

I felt I was playing very similarly to Wednesday, until the last seven holes, when I got screwed,” he said.

“At the 17th, I hit my tee shot up the right. People said, that’s your ball there, TaylorMade 1. So I hit it up the fairway, where I saw a line on the side of my ball and knew it wasn’t mine. I went back and found my ball two yards from where I had hit the wrong one.”

The hole cost the 19-year-old Kilkenny golfer a seven and he had to settle for a 79, 14 more than he had taken 24 hours early.

Black looked to have set himself up for another low score when he eagled the second, but not a whole lot went right for him after that, so he was quite content to settle for a 75 and a still very respectable total of 140.

When the day ended prematurely in mid-afternoon, the 36-hole lead was shared by 2009 champion Robbie Cannon (Balbriggan) and Robert Moran (Castle), both having shot two rounds of 69.

Featured 1st round matches today: 7.27am: M Nolan (Dun Laoire) v P O’Keeffe (Douglas). 8.03am: J Madden (Royal Portrush) v J Sugrue (Mallow). 8.30am: J Hickey (Cork) v M Norton (Belvoir Park). 8.39am: T Clarke (Royal Portrush) v R Moran (Castle). 9.15am: M Horan (Birr) v R Lester (Hermitage). 9.51am: M McKinstry (Cairndhu) v G O’Flaherty (Cork). 10.27am: M Boucher (Carton House) v M Power (Kilkenny). 10.36am: A Gleeson (Castle) v S Greenberg (Tandragee). 11.03am: P Murphy (Rosslare) v R Cannon (Balbriggan). 11.39am: N Hearns (Mountrath) v C Rafferty (Dundalk).