A bright future for Irish students

TWO Irish players on golfing scholarships to American universities could be forgiven if they bore smiles as wide as all-American boy Matt Kuchar.

Kuchar, winner of the US Amateur championship in 1997 and leading amateur in last year's US Masters and US Open, is tipped as a future golf star in the United States. And, apparently, a string of potential sponsors are beating a path to his door in an attempt to sign up the syrup-sweet college kid who, it just happens, can play a bit of golf too!

But Michael Hoey, a first year student at Clemson, and Eamonn Brady, who's in the final year of his studies at East Tennessee State, have even more reasons to smile than Kuchar these days as they make a significant impression in an arena which has groomed such players as David Duval, Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Colin Montgomerie. While Kuchar currently lanquishes in 59th position in the US College order of merit, Hoey's Clemson team are top of the college standings - and he lies in 27th position in the individual rankings. Clemson in fact won the Schenkel E-Z-Go Invitational on the punishing college circuit last week, their fourth team win of the season.

Brady, meanwhile, finished in third position in the individual event behind the world's seventh ranked amateur Bryce Molder (a certainty for the US Walker Cup team this year) in last weekend's event in Dalton, Georgia, and moved to 31st in the latest individual rankings. Their progress will be of interest to Irish captain Mick Craddock who believes Ireland is capable of mounting a strong bid in the European Team Championships in Italy in July.

Both Royal Dublin's Brady and Shandon Park's Hoey, the Irish amateur open champion, are current internationals and are on the British and Irish Walker Cup training panel for the match in Nairn in August, while England's Luke Donald is also doing well in the States and is seventh in the latest individual standings. Meanwhile, Alison Coffey will face some pretty heavy artillery in her attempt to retain the Leinster Women's Amateur Open championship which takes place at the Portmarnock Links starting next Monday with 36-holes strokeplay. The top 16 players progress to the matchplay phase over the following two days.

Seven of the players who helped Ireland to second place in last year's Home Internationals will be competing in the Leinster championship which is the first major event on the domestic circuit. Included are Irish amateur champion Lillian Behan and beaten national finalist Oonagh Purfield and Irish amateur open strokeplay champion Suzanne O'Brien, while former champion Hazel Kavanagh should also pose a major threat.

Interestingly, the changing nature of women's golf - with an increasing number of young players participating in the main championships - is reflected with the entries of such as Martina Gillen, Jenny Gannon and Maura Morrin while UCD scholarship student Elaine Dowdall will also be among the contenders for the title.