The Irish Ladies Amateur Close Championship returns to Ballybunion this week, with a field of 72 players taking to the old course over 4 days starting on Thursday.
With the details, Ger Walsh
The Irish Ladies Amateur Close Championship returns to Kerry this week and Ballybunion’s Old Course where 72 players will battle it out from Thursday to Sunday hoping to have their name etched on the famous old trophy, first played for in 1894.
The event was last played in Kerry in 2013 also at Ballybunion, where Lurgan’s Paula Grant came from one down playing the last to beat Lisa Maguire at the 19th hole of a very exciting final and claim the first of her two Irish titles to date.
The championship has previously been played in Kerry on a total of eleven occasions, seven times at Ballybunion, three at Killarney and once in Waterville, with the legendary Mary McKenna winning three of her eight titles in the Kingdom.
The Close first visited the Kingdom in 1932 at Ballybunion, where fittingly, Miss Betty Latchford from Tralee who was a also member of Ballybunion lifted the title, beating Miss Daisy Ferguson of Royal County Down by 7/5 in the final and she remains to this day, the only Kerry winner.
Ballybunion hosted again four years later in 1936, when Clarrie Tiernan of Baltray emerged victorious with a 7/6 win over Miss Sybil Moore of Milltown. Miss Tiernan of course married and became Mrs Clarrie Reddan, the mother of future Irish International Barry Reddan.
Ballybunion was once again the venue when the event visited Kerry for the third time in 1951 and the legendary Philomena Garvey from Baltray beat Dorothy Foster of Balmoral by 12/10 in a 36-hole final, to claim the fifth of her fifteen Irish titles between 1946 and 1970.
Killarney hosted on the next occasion in 1956 when Miss Pat O’Sullivan from Tramore beat Miss Girlie Hegarty of Douglas by 13/12 in another 36-hole final and the lake-side course again hosted in 1963 when Philomena Garvey defeated Miss Elizabeth Barnett of Royal County Down by 9/7 for her fourteenth title.
Another Irish golfing legend Mary McKenna won the first of her eight Irish titles when the event visited Ballybunion in 1969 beating Miss Catherine Hickey of Milltown 3/2 in the final and three years later, in 1972, she claimed her second title at Killarney, beating Ita Butler from Elm Park by 5/4.
The 1977 championship again at Ballybunion, will always be remembered for the first-round match between Mary McKenna and the 13-year-old Bridget Gleeson from Killarney. Mary was the leading qualifier and Bridget qualified in last place, so they met in the first round and people were expecting that the teenager would be dispatched easily. But while McKenna had the advantage in length from the tee, Gleeson’s superb short game ensured a great match, in which the lead changed hands several times before the seasoned International got through on the final hole and she went on to beat Rhona Hegarty of Bandon by two holes in the final to claim her fourth title and her third in Kerry.
It would another eight years before the Close visited Kerry again, this time at Waterville in 1985 when Woodbrook’s Claire Hourihane completed three-in-a-row, beating Mary McKenna by 4/3 and six years later, in 1991, Hourihane was again victorious, this time at Ballybunion, beating the defending champion Eileen Rose McDaid of Skibbereen to claim the last of her five Irish titles, all won in the space of just nine years.
A huge gap then emerged before Paula Grant won at Ballybunion in 2013 but sadly, she is not in the field this time around but local interest centres on Ballybunion’s Emma O’Driscoll, Tralee’s Mary Sheehy and Killarney’s Valerie Clancy.
