The county Pitch & Putt season got going in Tralee with the staging of the County Adult Matchplay Championships only six months after the previous year’s Champions had been crowned at the same venue.
Damien Fleming carried on where he left off in the Senior Mens final last October in winning the competition and setting a new personal milestone for himself in the process. In the semi-finals he defeated Tralee’s Tony Blake as his opponent in the final would be another Tralee player, former National Intermediate Mens Strokeplay champion Michael Conway who had defeated Jason O’Regan in the other semi-final. Damien took a commanding 8up lead after the first 18 holes before going on to win 9&8 in the end. This was the Deerpark player’s fourth consecutive win in the Senior Mens event, improving on a previous record he set last year.
The Intermediate event saw Gavin Carroll win for the third time. Now back as a registered member of the Tralee club, Gavin defeated club-mate Keith O’Brien 4&3 to advance to the decider where he faced Castleisland’s Dan Broderick who had been a 3&2 winner over another Tralee player in Ollie Lynch. The decider saw Gavin lead 4up after the first 18 holes before he continued to dominate the second round winning by 10&8 for a finish. The closest of the four finals on the day was the Junior Mens event but even at that it was a 4&3 win for Michael Creagh from the host club against club-mate Mark O’Regan.
Michael defeated Willie John Buckley from Newmarket in the semi-finals as Mark was victorious over Deerpark’s Bobby Kelly in the other semi-final. Michael led by 2up after the first 18 holes over Mark before going on to double his winning margin in the end. The Ladies event meanwhile was an all Tralee affair in the last four as Lisa O’Connor defeated last year’s winner Rosemarie O’Sullivan by 6&5. Lisa had defeated Bernadette O’Regan in the semi-finals while Rosemarie was victorious over Catriona O’Connor.
The County Board thanks Tralee for hosting last Sunday’s event with only a week’s notice and would like to wish them well from here with the staging of the Munster Matchplay finals on the weekend of May 21st next.
Our next event is the qualifiers for these finals on Sunday May 7th in Newmarket which we will have more details on next week.
(Pictured at the presentation of prizes for the 2023 Kerry Pitch & Putt Ireland Adult Matchplay Championships at Tralee on Sunday from L to R are as follows: Mark O'Regan (Junior Runner-Up), Jason Cregan (County Board Officer), Michael Creagh (Junior Winner), Dan Broderick (Intermediate Runner-Up), Gavin Carroll (Intermediate Winner), Christy O'Mahony (County Board Competition Secretary), Damien Fleming (Senior Winner), John McGrath (County Board Chairman), Michael Conway (Senior Runner-Up), Lisa O'Connor (Ladies Winner), Jason O'Connor (County Board Secretary), Rosemarie O'Sullivan (Ladies Runner-Up))
