Feast of Irish amateur golf events underway

The 54-hole Irish Boys Amateur Championship got underway at Thurles Golf Club today

Charlie Flavin (Youghal) driving at the 15th tee in the first round of the 2020 Irish Boys Under 18 Amateur Close Championship at Thurles Golf Club today. Picture by Pat Cashman

Competitive Irish amateur golf roars back to life this week for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic with Ireland’s elite men set to resume battle at the Mullingar Scratch Trophy this weekend.

With the 54-hole Irish Boys Amateur Championship getting underway at Thurles Golf Club in Tipperary today, the famine caused by months of lockdown means a feast of championship golf in Ireland over the coming weeks and months and no event will be more keenly anticipated than the prestigious Mullingar Scratch Trophy, the first of four tournaments to comprise this season’s GUI Bridgestone Order of Merit.

A list of past winners including Darren Clarke, Padraig Harrington, Shane Lowry, Rory McIlroy, and Paul McGinley, tells you all you need to know about the quality of this event and the 58th staging will be headlined by Walker Cup duo James Sugrue and Caolan Rafferty.

Last year’s winner John Murphy will not be defending his title in this weekend’s 58th staging, the Kinsale golfer and Byron Nelson Award winner having returned to the United States for another season with the University of Louisville golf team. Yet another Corkman, Mallow’s Sugrue will be leading the list of contenders looking to succeed him. The reigning Amateur champion and world number 14 has been denied the chance to defend the title he won at Portmarnock last year following the GUI’s decision to follow Irish Government advice and recommend its golfers withdraw from upcoming championships in Britain and France.

Sugrue will have fellow Walker Cupper Rafferty to contend with, the Dundalk golfer ranked 18 in the world, but their Ireland team-mate Rob Brazill has been forced to withdraw having been confined to home in Naas, Co. Kildare due to the current localised Covid-19 lockdown.

There was a taste of how competitions will be run in this pandemic at Thurles today when the Irish Boys competitors had to adjust to socially distant score recording. Players entered their scores through their mobile phones on the GUI’s online scoring platform with verification taking place outdoors with players attesting to each other’s scores with the governing body’s Championships Manager Mark Werhly. Malahide’s Gavin O’Neill will take a one-stroke lead over Belvoir Park’s Luke Kelly into Tuesday’s second round following an opening three-under-par 69.