A round-up of other golf news in brief...
Draw means Ireland miss out on final
HOME INTERNATIONALS: Ireland flattered to deceive again yesterday in the women’s home internationals at Irvine on the Ayrshire coast. They were held 4½-4½ by a battling Wales who will today face Scotland in a winner-takes-all clash.
Ireland won the foursomes but experienced a roller-coaster ride in the singles. The top match between Vagliano Trophy colleagues Danielle McVeigh and Rhian Wyn Thomas finished all-square.Charlene Reid, the Royal Portrush player, maintained a 100 per cent record when she edged home on the final green against Gemma Bradbury.
Cork’s Gillian O’Leary saw off 15-year-old debutante Katie Bradbury 5 and 4, while Sarah Cunningham lost 4 and 2 to Lucy Gould and Carlow’s Aedin Murphy fell to Welsh champion Tara Davies.
Victoria Bradshaw went down 3 and 1 to and last year’s Welsh champion Amy Bolulden .
McIlroy evens it up after early struggles in Korea
KOREA OPEN: Rory McIlroy made a solid start to the 52nd Korea Open by opening with a level par 71 at Woo Jung Hills Country Club to be four shots off the lead shared by five players.
The 20-year-old started on the back nine and struggled to get to grips with the Chonan layout, some 90 minutes from South Korea’s capital Seoul.
He reached the turn in two-over but picked up a couple of birdies on his inward half.
South Koreans Kim Dae-sub, Kang Kyung-sool, Kim Dae-hyun, Park Boo-won and Australian Michael Wright share the lead after carding opening 67s.
“It’s a difficult course, really quite tight so level par is not a bad start. I did well to get things back to even,” said McIlroy, who was joined on level par by New Zealand’s young prodigy Danny Lee.
Japanese star Ryo Ishikawa, who last week won the Fujisankei Classic, shot a one-under-par 70 after firing five birdies against two bogeys and a double bogey.
Coakley tied for lead in Austria
WOMEN’S EUROPEAN TOUR: Ireland’s Rebecca Coakley is in a four-way tie for the lead after shooting a five-under-par 67 in the opening round of the UNIQA Open at Wiener Neustadt in Austria yesterday. Laura Davies, winner of this event for the last two years, Melissa Reid and Spain’s Marta Prieto are tied with Coakley.
Coakley, who has yet to win on tour, carded three birdies and holed a seven-iron shot from 147 yards for eagle at the par-four 13th. She said the only thing she had changed was her putter.
“I played steady until the 18th and finally holed a putt for birdie on 18,” she said. “I’m playing the same as I have all year, I just haven’t holed enough putts and today I made three birdies and got a bit lucky holing the seven-iron. I can’t say that anything is very different.”
Just one shot off the pace was another Irishwoman, Hazel Kavanagh, who was joined on 68 by Spain’s Laura Cabanillas, Frenchwoman Jade Schaeffer and Germany’s Bettina Hauert.
Westwood voted August's finest
AWARD: Lee Westwood has been named by a panel of golf writers and commentators as the European Tour’s Golfer of the Month for August – even though Korean YE Yang, who beat Tiger Woods head-to-head in becoming Asia’s first-ever major champion, was eligible for the award.
Westwood finished third at the US PGA and that, coupled with his ninth place finish at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational, earned him the vote.
Irish pair five shots off the pace
CHALLENGE TOUR: Gareth Shaw and Colm Moriarty are five shots off the pace after both fired two under par opening rounds of 70 in the Dutch Futures at Golf Club Houtrak in Halfweg.
Moriarty carded three birdies and just the single bogey,hile Shaw posted four birdies and two bogeys to trail leader Ben Mason of England, who signed for a superb 65.
Both players are in need of a good showing in the Netherlands to improve their chances of a late dart into the all important top 20 on the rankings.
Mason fired an eagle and six birdies for a superb opening round, holing his second shot with a wedge from 130 yards on the par four 16th hole (his 7th) after opening with three birdies in his first five holes.
He picked up another shot on the 18th but dropped one straight after before adding further birdies on the second and eighth holes.
