Battling UCD end long wait

One of golf's great unsolved mysteries, how UCD had never managed to acquire a senior pennant, was righted yesterday when a team of players with varying degrees of international representation on their curricula vitae won the Barton Shield in the Bulmers All-Ireland Cups and Shields finals at Newlands.

The win, belated and all as it was for one of the country's great sporting institutions, was acquired the hard way in a final with City of Derry.

For much of a cool, calm afternoon, it looked as if the trophy would be locked safely into the boot of one of the cars with the poster "COD on Tour" plastered to a rear window - but the golfing scholarship students of UCD fought rearguard actions to turn the two matches around and, in the end, claim a two-hole margin of victory.

Mark Campbell, a full international, and Paul McDonald, a boys' international, came from three down after seven holes to beat David Jones, who had delayed his return to the University of Toledo so that he could play, and Lester Moore by one hole.

Justin Kehoe, another full international, and Mark O'Sullivan, who has played for Ireland at youths' level, were two down playing the 15th but won three successive holes in somewhat surreal fashion against Michael McGeady and Sam Smallwoods to guarantee victory.

The 16th hole, a 187-yards par three with a devilishly difficult pin placement, was crucial to UCD's turnaround in fortunes. It was there that the top pairing of Campbell and McDonald three-putted for a bogey - and still won the hole, after Jones's tee-shot missed the green left and Moore failed to make the green with his recovery.

That put UCD two up but, when they lost the 18th to a birdie, where Jones played a superb greenside bunker shot to two feet and Moore made the putt, it looked as if the match would go to the wire.

However, by the time the players in the first match walked some 50 yards to the 16th green, they were in time to witness a four-putt double-bogey from City of Derry's McGeady and Smallwoods.

The Derry duo had also double-bogeyed the 15th, and their putting woes on the 16th green put them back to level. But their run of bad luck hadn't finished. On the 17th, McGeady's approach finished six inches from the lip of the bunker and Smallwoods, with one foot in and the other out of the trap, went for the brave shot but contrived to put the ball into the sand.

It resulted in another double bogey, and gave UCD their first green pennant since their Junior Cup success in 1936.

Nothing comes easy in this intense inter-club competition, as Curragh, no doubt, will testify. An enthralling Irish Junior Cup semi-final encounter between Curragh and Harbour Point was only settled when 16-year-old Paul O'Hanlon won the decisive match with Vincent Daly at the fourth tie hole.

The roars that greeted the success were sufficient to drown out the noise of the traffic on the nearby Belgard Road.

O'Hanlon, who sat his Junior Cert exams this year, had one test after another yesterday and passed them all - but Daly, too, played his part in a tussle that encapsulated the intensity of combat.

Daly sent the match into sudden-death when holing a 30-footer to win the 18th, and, thereafter, the protagonists had various escapades - including finding trees off the tee, visiting greenside bunkers and even sharing the 20th in birdies - before O'Hanlon's five-iron tee-shot to the 172-yard fourth hole, to 25 feet behind the flag and a winning two-putt, ended an engrossing match.

The result put Curragh, seeking a first-ever green pennant, into today's final against Ballyclare.

Meanwhile, Gort won the final three matches of their Pierce Purcell Shield semi-final with Rathdowney to set up a final showdown with Kanturk, who defeated defending champions Roe Park.