They don't talk of it as a jinx, but it dates back to Michael Guerin's feat in the formative years of the 1960s - when he won three successive titles - since anyone managed to successfully retain the South of Ireland amateur open championship, sponsored by Irish Shell, at Lahinch.
Yesterday, Mark Campbell, last year's champion, discovered just how difficult the task can be as he made an immediate exit in defence of that title. On a grey overcast day, with rain-laden clouds sweeping in from the Atlantic, Mike Kemmy - a first round winner over Clare hurler Davy Fitzgerald - took an even bigger scalp when beating Campbell, an Irish international, by 2 and 1.
Of his win over Fitzgerald on Saturday, Kemmy had quipped: "I think Davy found it quite different to an All-Ireland final in Croke Park . . . he didn't have 14 team-mates with him." His demeanour was a touch more serious after a merited win over Campbell, the basis for which was laid early on when he raced into a three hole lead after four holes. "I just played patient golf after that," he remarked.
Indeed, Kemmy, whose Limerick-based company Stonecraft specialises in golf award, felt that playing in the first round (Campbell, one of 64 seeded players, went straight into the second round) had actually given him an edge. "These guys can be beaten," he claimed, adding: "Lahinch is the sort of course that produces shocks."
Campbell, who was three down at the turn, won the 13th and 14th holes with back-to-back birdies to reduce the deficit to one hole but, when his putter was called upon to save him over the crucial finishing holes, it let him down (most notably with a three-putt from 35 feet on the 16th) and, so, the defending champion made a speedier exit than anticipated.
There was nothing speedy about the match involving Peter Cowley and Stuart Paul. In fact, no one could recall a longer battle than the 26 holes it took to eventually separate the duo. In the end, it took a chipin birdie from 20 yards to decide the issue with Cowley emerging triumphant. "If I hadn't done that, I think we'd still be out there playing," said Cowley, a 54-year-old company director.
Elsewhere, there was an unusual incident in the match between Kieran McCarthy and Colin Cunningham. At the 12th, after pulling his four-iron approach shot of 230 yards into heavy rough, McCarthy played a provisional ball - and holed out for an unlikely par four.
McCarthy, who had served as Rules Official in his club for two years, was vaguely aware of a ruling which decreed that once he removed the provisional ball from the cup, then that became the ball in play. And this is what he did. So, although they subsequently found his original ball, the par remained (under Rule 27-2b/2 of the Decisions on the Rules of Golf) and McCarthy went one up, which proved to be the margin of victory at the end of the match.
Apart from Campbell, most of the considered big guns survived. Michael Hoey, perhaps, had the biggest scare of all. He was three down after six holes to Bryan Ronan but managed to turn it around and eventually won by 2 and 1, while Noel Fox, the dual Irish Open and East of Ireland champion, included six birdies in a high-quality win over Lee Owens, and Irish close champion Graeme McDowell coasted to a 5 and 4 win over teenager David Ryan.
