Canice Screene impresses at K Club but happy to play second fiddle to Mayo's All-Ireland champions

Canice Screene of Ireland watches her tee shot on the first hole. Pic: Seb Daly/Sportsfile

It’s already been quite the sporting year for Canice Screene’s mother. A native of Belmullet, Caroline Screene (née Gaughan) got to watch Mayo win the All-Ireland football final after a wait of 75 years just last month.

Now she gets to look on as her husband Michael, a son of Galway who watched that defeat of Kerry with her in the pub, caddie for their daughter as Canice leads the home challenge into the weekend of this year’s KPMG Women’s Irish Open in Kildare.

Born in London, and an Ireland international since she was 13, Screene is ten shots off leader Casandra Alexander of South Africa. 

So, if a first LET Tour victory is unlikely, she could see the funny side when asked if a win here could hope to trump Mayo’s big day for her mum.

“Do you know what? I reckon Mayo's All-Ireland [would rank first] because they waited longer for that,” she laughed after a second round 67 that leaves her on five-under at the halfway mark. “So I think I'll let them off.” 

Her performance through two days is all the more noteworthy for the fact that she is playing the vast majority of her golf on the LET Access Series this year, where courses can be tricky and only the top seven earn promotion, in a bid to regain her main tour card.

Form of late hasn’t been where she would want it to be, but she can look back to this same event 12 months ago, when shooting a superb 66 on the closing day at Carton House, for confidence and proof that more can be achieved again.

“To know I've done it once, to play well at the weekend, I feel like it's given me confidence I can do it again. And also just leaning on how I played today and the confidence I had in my irons particularly makes me feel good going into the next few days.” 

Screene is just one among half-a-dozen among the record 16 Irish players to have survived that halfway cut. Leona Maguire, Annabel Wilson and Aine Donegan are next closest to the summit from an Irish perspective, all at two-under par.

Maguire was up to a tie for 12th at -4 through 12, but gave up shots at 16 and the par-five 18th. As with day one, she finished feeling that a round of 71 was in no way reflective of some of the golf she played and the chances she made.

“I'm walking off the course feeling like I could have shot 10 under-today,” she said.

As with Donegan, who could only manage a one-over par 73 on the day despite giving herself plenty of opportunities to go lower, Maguire was left to rue a lack of return on what she described as “bumpy greens” at the K Club.

“I wasn't hitting bad putts. It was a lot of burning edges and stuff like that. So, I mean, it's not far away. I feel like it's very close to being very good.

Anna Foster and Lauren Walsh were the other Irish players to make it inside the cut of one-over. Walsh’s achievement stands out given she was five-over at one point on Thursday and went seven-under through the next 22 holes before a double bogey at the last.

“I played really nicely today,” said Walsh who is from up the road in Kill. “I think I only missed two greens, so I gave myself a lot of chances. Could have been a really low one, but I just couldn't get anything to drop on the front line.

“So, happy with how I played today. I had two blips and two three-putts yesterday, but honestly, I played nicely besides that. So yeah, hopefully my game's in good shape coming into the weekend.” 

Sara Byrne of Cork just missed out on hanging around by two, a missed three-foot putt on her last hole making no difference in the end. Kate Dillon finished two over the line while Anna Abom, Olivia Costello, Olivia Mehaffay and Anna Dawson all ended on plus-four.

The others to fall shy of the mark were Katie Poots, Beth Coulter, Emma Fleming and Emma Cantwell.

Sitting top on nine-under after an initial 63, Alexander opened her second round with a blistering eagle-birdie-birdie run from the 10th hole. The rest of her front nine was played to par before a second eagle, at the par-five 3rd, improved matters again.

She signed for a 66.

The 27-year-old is the current LET Order of Merit leader, and the highest player in the field in the global Rolex Rankings at number 38, but she is looking to win for the first time this year after six runner-up finishes.

It was a beautiful, calm day of low scores in Kildare with the top nine players all managing to shoot somewhere between a 64 and a 67. Best of the lot was Corinne Viden of Sweden with a blemish-free eight-under par effort.

That leaves her as one of three players five shots back from Alexander. Sara Kouskava of Czechia and Brianna Navarossa of the USA are the others hoping to narrow the gap as the weekend promised a return to far more inclement conditions.