EUROPEAN SENIORS TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP:Defending champions Ireland battled hard in their semi-final against Germany at Shannon Golf Club to progress to tomorrow's final. The home side, who won the title in 2007 at Bled, suffered an early scare and at one stage were down in all five matches.
But an incident on the par five eighth signalled the turnaround, but not in the manner they would have liked.
Germany's Benno Wimmer, playing in the only foursomes match with Karlheinz Noldt, took ill and was brought to Ennis General Hospital as a precaution. The Germans were left with no option but to concede the match and Ireland's luck began to change.
Adrian Morrow was pitched against Michael Reich in the first singles and the Portmarnock man struggled early on, going two holes down after six.
"He (Reich) stuck to me like glue," Morrow said. "I had to hole from eight feet on the seventh just to stop myself from going three down. We both birdied the eighth hole, and then I won the par three to get back a hole. I won 14 but lost 15, and then won the 16th with par."
The match win was sealed on the 18th: with Morrow's third shot lying three feet from the pin, Reich failed to make birdie and conceded the hole and the match to the Dubliner.
Ireland's third point of the day came from Maurice Kelly. Up against Hans-Gunther Reiter, Kelly was locked in a close battle from the off. The match eventually went in Kelly's favour, and with wins on the 13th and 17th holes he closed the match 2 and 1.
Ireland's opponents in today's final are Scotland, who beat England 3 and 2.
The final starts at 2.45pm.
BRITISH BOYS:Unsung Scot David McKenna will meet high-flying Portuguese star Pedro Figueiredo in today's 36-hole final of the British Boys Amateur Championship at Little Aston after they both battled through gritty semi-finals.
McKenna, from the Balmore club in Glasgow, was never behind against Switzerland's Victor Hanauer and was in fact three up with three to play, but he bogeyed 16 and 17, to be just one up playing the last. He also bogeyed the 18th, but Hanauer could do not better than get a half and the match was lost.
Figueiredo, who was six under par in his quarter-final victory in the morning, couldn't reach the same heights in the afternoon against Canterbury's Levi Johnson.
Johnson, a one handicapper, made a great fight of it against the Portuguese and Irish champion, who plays off plus four, but a wayward drive on 15 and an approach which flew the green at 16 ultimately cost him the match.
ULSTER YOUTHS:Alan Dunbar dramatically pulled out of an early nosedive in the closing round of the Ulster Youths Championship to win the title by six strokes at Royal Portrush.
The 18-year-old from Rathmore fired a four-birdie, three-under-par 69 in the morning, but then slipped over par for the first time in the test with a 73.
Runner-up was 16-year-old Chris Selfridge of Moyola Park, a teammate of Dunbar's on the winning Boys Home International team at Royal County Down.
Selfridge carded the best score of the final round, a 71, for 288.
CHALLENGE TOUR:Rising star Wil Besseling of the Netherlands has targeted his second Challenge Tour victory after a blistering 64 shot him to the top of the leaderboard at the the Trophée du Golf Club de Genève.
Besseling moved to 12 under par, two shots clear of Scotland's Steven O'Hara.
A win would all but guarantee the Dutchman a card on next season's European Tour.
US TOUR:Carl Pettersson bogeyed two holes in the second round at the Wyndham Championship - but it did not stop him from shooting nine-under-par 61 in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Taking advantage of calm morning conditions, he plundered Sedgefield to the tune of 11 birdies to leave the field in his wake.
Pettersson's 15-under total gave him a three-shot cushion with half the field back in the clubhouse.
