Mount Juliet Golf Notes

Last Sunday saw the Member/Guest 18 Hole Singles competition for July down for decision and on one of those rare Summer days, that we have not seen too many of this year, the scoring matched the temperatures. In the men’s section the winner was Dan Kavanagh with a fine score of 40 points. After a reasonable start, he covered the first nine holes with a score of 17 points and this included a blank on the first hole, he certainly came to life on the back nine which he covered in two over par gross and this registered him a score of 23 points.

In second place came Denis Treacy with 39 points which could have been so much better but for 2 sixes on his card, one on the seventh and the other one on the last hole. Third and fourth places were filled by Tony Hoyne and Peter Quigley with 38 and 37 points respectively.
In the Ladies section the winner was Mary Quigley, wife of Peter, who had a fine score of 36 points and she easily won from Rebecca Nixon with 31 points. There was a special competition for the ladies and Mary, by virtue of her winning score, will be presented with the O2 Perpetual Trophy to keep for the coming year.

The McCalmont Matchplay has now reached the semi-final stages with Sheila MacDonald drawn against Rebecca Nixon in the top half and Steven Price to meet James J. Brett in the bottom half. In the quarter finals Sheila beat Tim Kavanagh and Rebecca accounted for Helen Comerford. While Steven got the better of Padraic O’ Connor and James just got home against John Brown.
Next weekend sees the Residential Trophy(Sat.) and the Family Day(Sun.) down for decision with round two of the Summer Series to be played this Tuesday. The third and last round of this Summer Series will be played on Friday 21st September and as usual there will be a shotgun start in the early afternoon. Prizes for this day are been sponsored by Taylor Made Golf.

Results Member/Guest Singles Stableford:

Winner: Dan Kavanagh(13) 40 points.
Second: Denis Treacy(8) 39 points.
Third: Tony Hoyne(21) 38 points.
Fourth: Peter Quigley(7) 37 points.

Ladies:

Winner: Mary Quigley(34) 36 points.
Second: Rebecca Nixon(22) 31 points.

The July Monthly Medal took place last Sunday in the typical summer weather that we have endured this year so far. The turnout was good despite the depressing weather for this time of year, although the showers did not come until late evening, and by that time the majority of the field had completed their round. Some great scoring was recorded on the day by both the ladies and the men. As usual there were three categories and the best score of the day was returned by young Jake Beirne who had an amazing 43 points off 11 handicap. Jake had nines of 22 and 21 points respectively only dropping shots to par on four holes and with no birdies, this was a truly remarkable round of golf. Jake dropped his four shots on the 3rd, 13th, 16th and 18th holes and scored pars on all other fourteen holes. As a result Jakes handicap is now in single figures and he is to be congratulated on his fine round.

As this was a Golfer of the Year competition play was off the white tees with the course playing every bit of almost 7000 yards in length and the category prizes were won by Conrad Timon with 40 points in category 1, with Cliff Beirne, Jakes father, winning category 2 and Tim Kavanagh winning category 3.

In the ladies section there is no stopping Rebecca Nixon who again returned a remarkable 38 points to easily win her section. This score now gives her almost an unassailable lead in the Golfer of the Year and her nearest challenger, Lynda Hickey, will need to really pull out all the stops over the remaining competitions to catch her.
In the men’s section of the G.O.Y. there is little change with Dan Kavanagh pulling away slightly further from his nearest challengers but this result is not as foregone as the ladies.
Results July Monthly Medal:
Category 1. Conrad Timon (11) 40 points.
Category 2. Cliff Beirne (12) 35 points.
Category 3. Tim Kavanagh (20) 39 points.
Junior Prize Jake Beirne (11) 43 points.

The Captains’( Terry Sullivan and Brona Reidy) Prizes were decided last weekend with some 40 players playing on Friday evening and the remaining 130 odd playing on Saturday. The Friday players were lucky in two ways as the conditions on Friday were so much better than Saturday with some heavy showers dotting the morning on Saturday. The second advantage that the Friday players had was that the course played that bit easier as the rough was not wet which proved much easier to extricate oneself out of trouble. However this proved to be the winning formula as the winner and runner-up of the men’s competition both competed on Friday afternoon.

However the same story did not apply to the Lady Captain’s winner as all the winning scores were posted on Saturday and this was accounted for by the fact that the majority of the ladies played on Saturday.

The winner of Terry Sullivan’s prize was John Thompson with a great score of 42 points and he spreadeagled the field by a wide margin. John added this, his first Captain’s Prize, to last year’s President’s Prize where again he had a comfortable winning margin and his handicap has now been duly adjusted. He had nines of 20 and 22 points respectively and his only blip came on the 18th where he failed to score a point by having a seven and but for that blip he would have posted a record score off the white tees for a Captain’s Prize. As it was he had a gross score of 12 over par, 84, which represented a nett 66 when he adjusted for his handicap allowance. John is a member of the Leinster Fourball team who are pitted against Wexford in the fourth round of the Inter Club Matchplay to be played this week but as he is away on the day he will be sorely missed from the team. The runner-up, who again played on Friday evening was Pat Price Jr. who played very solidly for a score of 38 points. Pat had nines of 18 and 20 points respectively for each nine holes and his only mishap in an otherwise excellent round was on the short 3rd where he found water.

The winner of Brona Reidy’s Prize was Malu Treacy with an excellent score of 38 points and she just got home by a shot from Helen Comerford who stormed home on the back nine with 21 points. Malu had the opposite experience of Helen by having nines of 21 and 17 points respectively whereas Helen did it in reverse order by only scoring 16 points on the first nine holes. Malu is having a very successful time since she took up this game only three years ago and already her handicap has plummeted downwards. The Ladies scores were a much closer affair than that of the men’s as all prizewinners finished within two shots of the winner. All the prizes were presented before a very enjoyable dinner on Saturday night and a very entertainting social evening followed that went on until the early hours of Sunday morning.

Some interesting items on the day were that the visitors’ prizes were won by the visiting Captain of El Paraiso in Spain, Eric Leicester and his wife Pat, who are friends of Terry. The other interesting item was that Terry’s wife, Norma, almost won Brona’s prize.

As reported earlier the Leinster Fourball Team are in action against Wexford this week and this will be reported on in next week’s edition as will the results of the July Ladies Invitation Day which will take place this Wednesday.