Spanish Point win quadrangular challenge

LAST Sunday, the annual quadrangular challenge between Kilkee, Kilrush, Spanish Point and Lahinch golf clubs was played on the Castle Course at Lahinch. Played as a four-ball better ball, with five cards to count, Spanish Point were the clear winners with a score of 217 points giving them a margin of 46 points ahead of the runners-up, Kilkee. The best score for Spanish Point came from John J Skerritt (11) and Páidí McGough (11) with 45 points.
This weekend sees the beginning of the 2012 Golfer of the Year season with the first of the counting singles on the fixture list and this is in a strokeplay format.
The Dan Gallery Cup club matchplay entry sheet is on the noticeboard and this is also a counting event for golfer of the year points.
The Munster Country Clubs Cup team under manager Martin Glenny play Templemore in Dromoland Golf Club on Saturday, April 28 at 1.30pm and the Jimmy Bruen team sheet is now on the notice board. Managers Brendan Reddan and Eamonn McMahon are arranging practice shortly.
Local girl Sinéad Sexton was selected on the Munster ladies’ team that played the National Interprovincial Championship last week.
In the seniors’ open last week, Christy Mohally (15) was the winner with 39 points from John O’Brien (15) with 35 points.
The Friday open was won by Rory Sexton (23) with 40 points. In the weekend singles competition, Michael O’Gorman (28) won with 41 points from Cathal Whelan (5) with 38 points.
Fiona O’Boyle (16) was the winner of last week’s stroke competition with a score of 66 nett. In second place was Kathleen Twomey (26) on a score of 71 nett. There will be an 18-hole Stableford competition next weekend.

Ennis
ENNIS Seniors held a team-of-three competition last week when the winners were Eamon Murphy, Terry Hughes and Sean O’Gorman with 52 points. They were followed by Frankie White, Michael Torpey and Frank Coffey on 51, Paddy Cahill, Dick Herbert and Noel Ruane on 50, Gerry Gilligan, Seamus D’Arcy and Dan Spaight on 50, Tim Kelly, Dickie Pyne and Tom Fox on 49 and Pat Rutherford, Tom Greene and John McEntee, also on 49.
In the team-of-four competition in aid of St Vincent De Paul, the winners were Charlie McEnery, BA Considine, Ger Hanrahan and Eamon Kelly with 132 from Colin Ryan, Ger Hannon, Tom  Glynn and Tom Woulfe with 120 points.
In the Friday open singles, Gary Collins was the winner with 41 points from Jason Woods on 39, Colum Devine on 39 and Oliver Rooney on 37. Daniel Brennan won the gross with 32. In the ladies’ competition, Mary McNamara, Kilrush, was the winner with 35 points from Vera Madden.
In the Ennis club development classic, the winners were Eamonn Kelly, Ger Hanrahan, Charlie McEnery and BA Considine with 115 points, followed by Mike Butler, Damien Pilkington, John Nevin and Peter Quinn with 113 points. In third place, also with 113 points, were Sam Doyle, Jason Considine, John McCarthy and Bernard Hanrahan.
In the ladies’ seniors last week, the winners were Mary Lenihan, Kathleen Frehill and Susan O’Brien with 40 points from Francis O’Reilly, Carmel Uí Ceallaigh and Betty O’Riordan with 37 points.
In the ladies’ 18-hole Stableford, Cora Kerins was the winner with 39 points from Margaret Lacheiner with 37.
In the Friday open, Mary McMahon from Kilrush won with 35 points from Vera Madden on 34 points.

Kilrush
THE winner of the men’s singles at Kilrush at the weekend was Tony McMahon with 38 points from TJ Lyons with 36 points and Declan O’Donovan with 36 points.
The Pat Geaney singles competition will take place this weekend. Last Wednesday’s singles competition for seniors was won by TJ Lyons from John Robinson with John McNeilis in third spot.
In the ladies’ singles on Thursday, Ann Coen was the winner with 37 points from Mary O’Sullivan on 36, Joan O’Malley with 33 points and Mary Young with 32 points.
The club will hold a race night on Friday at 9.30pm. It will be preceded by a Friday mixed with a tee time of 6.30pm.

Lahinch
IN the ladies’ open singles at Lahinch last Wednesday, Martina Skerritt (19) from Spanish Point was the winner with 29 points, while the men’s winner was Thomas Coughlan (21) from Gort with 45 points.
In Thursday’s open singles, Jack Hoare (11) from Castletroy won with 40 points from Jim McMahon (12) Woodstock with 38 points and Raymond Skelly (13) with 36 points.
In the ladies’ open on Thursday, Bridie Casey (18) from Muskerry was the winner with 25 points.
The men’s monthly medal was the competition on Saturday when Pat Vaughan (16) was the winner with 66 from Frank Keane (12) with 69 and Enda Hegarty (18) with 70. Aaron McNulty won the gross with 75.
In the ladies’ gold medal on Saturday, Mary O’Doherty (13) was the winner with 71 from Marjorie Ahern (11) with 72 and Miriam Abernethy (7) with 73. The gross was won by Sinéad Sexton with 75.
In the men’s fourball on Sunday, John O’Connor (10 and Martin Guerin (17) were the winners with 43 points from Gary Lavelle (5) and Kieran Shanahan (21) with a similar score.

Dromoland
IN the men’s fourball at Dromoland, PJ Hehir and Tim Kennelly were the winners with 37 points from Declan O’Leary and Sean Donnellay on 35 points. Gordon and Cormac O’Neill won the junior section with 42 points.
This weekend’s competition will be v par. Tuesday’s mixed scramble will start at the new time of 5pm.
In the ladies’ Stableford competition, Suzanne McConway (11) won with 37 points from Yvonne Shanahan (22) with a similar score and Joan Ryan (14) with 35 points.
Dromoland had an exchange day with Galway Golf Club last week. The ladies’ open day is on Tuesday, April 24 when the format will be teams of four.
There will be a men’s team of four on Wednesday of next week with a four-person scramble on Thursday and a men’s singles competition on Friday.

Shannon
IN the open singles at Shannon last week, Michael Carroll (19) was the winner with 39 points from Peter Hegarty (11) with a similar score. William O’Gorman (9) was third on 37 points, while Ed Hickey (1) won the gross with 36 points.
Last week’s team-of-four competition was won by Ian Richardson (8), Liam O’Gorman (15), John (12) and Tom Fox (16) with 94 points. They had one to spare over Malcolm Simpson (17), Maurice Murphy (15), James Morrissey (14) and Liam Hogan (11).
In the open fourball on Sunday, Eamonn Cregan (12) and Paul Kilbridge (16) were the winners with 43 points.

Woodstock
THE winner of the Wednesday open singles at Woodstock was Pat Cosgrove (8) with 39 points from Alan Markham (12) with 37 points.
The winner of the Bank Holiday Monday open singles was Aaron Donegan (13) with 38 points.
Sunday’s ladies’ 18-hole Stableford competition was won by Joan Barrett (16) with 32 points from Áine Burke (18) with 31 points. The Thursday mixed starts at 5.45pm, while the draw for Sunday’s 18-hole Stableford competition will be at 11.50am.
In the spring league final, Jason Dormer’s team scored a 4-0 win. Dormer beat Adrian Kearney, Liam O’Connor beat James McMahon, Dermot O’Neill beat Paul Sherlock and Andrew Mason beat Tony Barrett.
In the club singles, Aidan Mulcahy (5) was the winner with 39 points from Pat Solan (14) with 39 and John O’Dwyer (20), who also scored 39 points.

East Clare
IN the men’s singles at East Clare, Martin Morrissey (15) was the winner with 43 points from Pat McKenna (10) with 42 and Jim Lyons (18) with 39 points.
In the men’s senior competition, the winners were Denis Collins, John Stack and JJ Barton from Brendan Moloney, William McLysaght and Kevin Grimes.
In a ladies’ golfer-of-the-year competition, Joan Kinsella was the winner with 67 nett from Sheena Mannion on 69.
The winner of category 1 was Ciara Magill with 70, while Bess Fennessy won category 2 with 73 and Deirdre Cooney won category 3.
The winner of the ladies’ seniors outing was Connie McKenna from Jenny Ryan and Mary Collins.
This week, the men’s section will have a fourball matchplay qualifier, while the ladies’ club will have a flag competition.
The winter league final was played on Sunday and the Tony Scott-led team of Tony, Ger Teefy, Breda O’Loghlin, Mary Hogan, Teddy and Michael O’Hanlon emerged victorious. In the match play final, they managed to win their four games and they were followed in second place by Mike Stritch, Enda Donnellan, Peg Hanrahan, Bríd Hayes, Martin McInerney and Brendan Moloney. With Brendan and Enda having won their match and also Martin McInerney having defeated Declan Doyle, a win for Mike Stritch and Bríd Hayes in their match would have won the title for their team. However, on the day this was not to be. In third spot was William O’Brien’s team, which included William, Kevin and Kathleen O’Brien, Brigid Minogue, Michael O’Brien and Fran O’Meara. The fourth-placed team was Kevin, Eoghan, Marese and Mary Mannion, John and Declan Doyle.
The winter league was very well supported this year and over the last three months, over 800 rounds of golf were played in the various competitions from singles to fourballs and scrambles and waltzes.

Doonbeg
THE president’s (Michael Bermingham) prize was played for at Doonbeg last Sunday. There was a big turnout and victory went to Michael Killeen with 38 points from Noel McMahon, who had a similar score. Kevin Hayes, who also scored 38 points, was in third spot with Tom O’Dea next on 35 points. Vivian Killeen won the gross, while the nines were won by John Igoe and Gearóid Willians. Joe McMenamin from Ballybofey Golf Club won the visitors’ section.

Kilkee
THE winners in week six of the spring league at Kilkee were John McGuire (10) with 30 points, John Garvey (15) with 27 points, John Ryan (16) with 35 points, Dermot Gaffney(17) with 33 points, Andrew O’Flynn (19) with 29 points and Joan Eakins (23) with 31 points. The best individual score was returned by John Ryan (16) with 35 points.

Portumna
IN the men’s open singles at Portumna on Saturday, Shane Neylon (15) was the winner with 37 points from Brian Hayes (17), with a similar score and Eoghan O’Hare (14) with 36 points. The gross was won by Pat Quinlan with 30 points, while the seniors section was won by Liam Keane (18) with 35 points.
In the open singles last week, the winner was Robert Hanley (24) from Limerick Golf Club with 37 points from John Cleary (5) with 36 points and Oliver Rooney (19) with 36 points. The gross was won by JP McLoughlin (scratch) with 34 points.
In the ladies’ section, the Spring Cup was won by Ann S Carty with 37 points from Marese Cooney with 36 points and Birgit Dagenhardt with 35 points.
The monthly open three-ball betterball continues until the end of April.

Gort
THE winner of the subscription stakes singles competition at Gort at the weekend was Ciarán Coughlan (13) with 39 points from David Quirke (4) with a similar score, James Mulqueen (12) with 38 points and George Fahey (16) with 35 points. The gross was won by John Greer (4) with 31 points.
The Easter Monday singles was won by Kieran Blake (24) with 39 points from Shane Keane (16) with 38 points. There will be a men’s 18-hole singles this Saturday and Sunday.
In the ladies’ section, Mary Geoghegan was the winner of the weekend competition with 40 points from Ruth Naughton on a similar score and Siobhán Forde on 39 points.
The Monday open was won by Ruth Naughton on 37 points from Siobhán Forde on 36 points. This week, the ladies will play for the Bob Forde Trophy, an 18-hole singles Stableford competition.

Sixmilebridge
SIXMILEBRIDGE society held an outing to Portumna last week when the winner was Russ Throw from Greg Deegan with Phil Brown in third spot. The nines were won by Shane Chaplin and John Collins, while the category prizes were won by Ed Crowe, Colin Murphy and Mike O’Halloran.

O’Callaghan’s Mills GAA
O’CALLAGHAN’S Mills GAA classic was held on Good Friday and Easter Saturday at East Clare Golf Club. The competition was extremely tough with four teams returning scores of 107 points but Eamon Long, Pat O’Dwyer, Sean Bolton and Joe Moloney won the event by scoring more points on the back six holes to take the Fr Conor McNamara Cup, which was presented by vice-chairman Joe O’Gorman in Jack’s Place on Saturday night.
In second place was Andrew and Kevin Moloney, Richard Tuite and Conor Moroney, followed by Brian Casey, Vinny Purcell, John McInerney and Eamon Healy. They were followed by Gerry Kelly, Jimmy McNamara, Teddy O’Hanlon and Kevin Stritch. In fifth place on 105 points were Christy Cleary, Stephen McGrath, Joe Fitzgerald and Joe O’Brien, followed on 104 points by Pat and Jacob Loughnane with Sam Touhy and Michael O’Halloran. The longest drive was won by Mike Hanley, with nearest the pin won by Siobhán Shanahan. Over the two days, 38 teams took part in the classic.

Clarecastle GAA
CLARECASTLE GAA will hold a team-of-four classic at Ennis this Saturday as part of their 125th anniversary celebrations, For more information or to book a tee-off time, contact John Normoyle at 086 8050515.

Pitch and putt
NIALL Seery was the winner of the strokeplay competition at the Clare Road on Sunday. Tommy Kelly was in second place, while Kenneth Kerin won the gross.
This week, the Bob Canty Trophy will be played for.