THE effect of the weather in the middle of last week forced last Sunday’s County Matchplay Championships to be moved to Tralee from Castleisland. The County Board thanks the Tralee club for taking the event late on as the club completed a double at Mens Senior and Intermediate level. Indeed, fresh from his Munster Mixed Scotch Foursomes success the previous week, Tralee’s Jamie Blake continued his recent form by winning the Senior Mens event for the first time.
After both Deerpark’s Damien Fleming and himself defeated Jason O’Regan and Mike Conway respectively in the semi-finals, the stage was set for the final between the pair. Fleming took an early lead but Blake was superb in the second round of the match, shooting 13 under par for the 17 holes played second time around as he won 2&1. Jamie previously won the Senior Strokeplay but now completed the County double for himself with last Sunday’s win. The Intermediate Mens event saw Mark Lucey retain his title after defeating his club-mate Reece Sugrue in the final.
Lucey defeated Danny O’Leary in an all Tralee semi-final as Sugrue got the better of Listowel’s Ger Guerin in his semi-final. 5&3 was the margin of victory for Mark in the decider this year as the host club last Sunday were denied the clean sweep in the other two grades played. 2022 National U16 Strokeplay winner Ajay Barrett of Listowel won the Junior Mens event defeating John Lynch in the decider by 3&2 after Ajay had defeated Castleisland’s Adam Ricken in the semi-finals and John was a winner over Alan O’Connor in the other semi-final.
The Ladies event meanwhile say Charlotte Blake denied the chance to retain her title as Deerpark’s Eileen McCarthy got the better of her in the Final. Eileen defeated Bernadette O’Regan in the first semi-final while Charlotte was victorious over Catriona O’Connor.
This weekend sees us return to Tralee for the Munster Matchplay Qualifiers for the Mens grade. The Board will confirm full details of the event to clubs later in the wee
