Is it ever going to stop freezing or will golf courses recover from the prolonged months of continuous sub zero temperatures. Like every other course Mount Juliet has had to endure its fair share of Artic weather and it now has the not so envious reputation of holding the record for this Winter of having the coldest recorded temperature in Ireland when on 7th January the gauge dipped to – 16.3 degrees.
The Winter Series got off the ground last Thursday after a three hour frost delay when the competition reverted to a shotgun start at 1pm. A Tipperary team comprising of four Clonmel members, ably led by Trevor Gough from Coolmore Stud, led the qualifiers with a good score of 90 points. The winners had nines of 47 and 43 points respectively and just held on by a point from another Munster dominated team who finished on 89 points.
Things looked rosy for the Clonmel contingent until they reached the 16th hole and here they could only muster 2 points between all four players. Again they had a rather shaky finish as they could only muster 4 points on the 18th where three scores could count. The runners-up also had cause to rue their finish as they could only scramble 2 points on the 15th and they scored 47 and 42 points respectively for both nines. But at the end of the day it was the Clonmel who qualified for the final in three weeks time.