With the defeat of Deerpark’s Eileen McCarthy in the Ladies Nett quarter-finals on Sunday evening, Kerry interest in the National Matchplay Championships came to an end a day early as overall it was a disappointing weekend for the Kerry contingent in general.
Only five of the 21 players from the county involved won matches at either Erry or Tullamore in the Faithful County of Offaly. Deerpark’s Damien Fleming will be left with maybe the greatest ‘what if’ feeling after he took defending champion Ray Murphy of Cork all the way to the last hole in the first match of the Senior Mens event before falling to a 1down defeat. Club-mate John McGrath and Tralee duo Jason Cregan and Gavin Carroll were the only three Kerry players to advance to the Second Round of the Senior Mens event.
Both Jason and Gavin would lose at that stage but John McGrath picked up a 4&3 win over Louth’s Darren Fagan to earn a Last 16 place on Sunday afternoon. Here he would face Cork’s Frank Dineen as despite only trailing by two after the first 18 holes John would eventually lose by 4&3. In the Intermediate Mens event meanwhile Connie O’Sullivan Jnr’s 8&7 win over Tralee’s Roger Guthrie saw him become the only Kerry player to advance from the First Round in the Intermediate Mens event as here he would win a Second Round game with Dubliner Derek Conway 6&5 before losing out to Cork’s Christopher Duke in Round 3 at the very last hole.
Eileen McCarthy meanwhile received a bye into the Last 16 of the Ladies Nett event itself and was a strong 11&10 winner over Tipperary’s Katrina Brewer in her first match before going down by 5&4 in the quarter-finals to Kildare’s Laura Fogarty. The focus now switches to Strokeplay in the sport with the Bob Casey Inter-Club event getting underway in on Tuesday June 10th in Tralee and visiting, Castleisland, Deerpark and Listowel over the following Tuesday nights.
The County Strokeplay Finals will take place in Tralee on Sunday June 15th as the club host their Scratch Cup the following Saturday June 21st with a reminder again that Deerpark have postponed their dates scheduled for June 22nd until a later date in the autumn.
