GOLF/ROYAL DUBLIN SCORES:RHYS PUGH has been touted as something of a wunderkind in Welsh golf. Yesterday, with a stiff wind coming in off the Irish Sea to accentuate the challenge of the links here, the 17-year-old delivered on his credentials as one of those most up-and-coming by defeating Scotland's Gordon Stevenson in a play-off to claim the Irish Amateur Open championship.
On a day when the winds pummelled competitors, with the closing two holes ending many a dream, extra holes was probably the last thing anybody wanted.
But, to his credit, Pugh, who had finished on 294, six over par, with Stevenson, finished the job comfortably by four strokes in the three-hole aggregate play-off, starting on the short par four 16th.
Pugh went par-bogey-bogey in the play-off to Stevenson’s par-triple bogey-triple bogey.
In essence, it was all over bar the shouting when Stevenson pushed his drive out-of-bounds on the 17th to run up a seven while the Welshman played sensibly to ensure he stayed out of trouble.
Pugh, already cast as a certainty for the Walker Cup team later this season, claimed what he called “the biggest win of my career so far. This pushes me up to the next level. The Walker Cup? Who knows?”
It was an agonising case of so near and yet so far for Paul Dunne, the 18-year-old from Greystones who finished tied for third with Dutchman Daan Huizing. In producing a final 72 – the best of any as scores soared into the high 80s – Dunne made an impressive if ultimately futile chase.
But Huizing, the on-course leader playing the 18th, became the latest victim of The Garden when his approach came up short in the out-of-bounds to run up a triple-bogey seven.
Dunne’s quest went to the wire, a par putt on the 18th lipping out to deny him what would have been a place in the play-off. It wasn’t to be, with much of the damage done in a third-round 79.
“I was frustrated with that,” he conceded, and he brought a different mindset into the final round where he “went out determined to keep my head focused”.
Dunne moved with stealth up the leaderboard. He was two under through the front nine – “I didn’t think it would be enough,” he conceded – in that outward run aided by the wind which brought birdies at the second, sixth and ninth to go with a solitary bogey on the eighth. And his solid play for much of the journey home enabled him to move into contention as others made mistakes.
“It was good to be in contention in a tournament again,” said Dunne. “For the last while I’ve been going out and caddying for others in the last round of tournaments like these. I played well but unfortunately just came up short.”
He will now put his clubs away to concentrate on the Leaving Cert.
294 – R Pugh (Wales) 72 70 74 78, G Stevenson (Scotland) 74 69 76 75 (Pugh wins after three-hole play-off)
295 – D Huizing (Netherlands) 77 70 74 74, P Dunne (Greystones) 73 71 79 72
297 – N Grant (Knock) 77 72 71 77
298 – P Cutler (Portstewart) 75 71 75 77, A Dunbar (Rathmore) 73 72 74 79
300 – L Bjerregaard (Denmark) 81 70 73 76
301 – K Nicol (Scotland) 75 72 74 80
302 – C Selfridge (Moyola Park) 78 73 72 79, R Whitson (Mourne) 76 69 76 81
303 – J Findlay (Scotland) 76 74 75 78
304 – A Hogan (Newlands) 82 68 73 81, R Kind (Netherlands) 71 76 79 78
305 – S Barry (Laytown Bettystown) 78 71 81 75, E Arthurs (Forrest Little) 76 75 75 79, J Greene (Carlow) 73 76 76 80
306 – M Veijalainen (Finland) 76 70 78 82, E McCormack (Galway) 74 70 82 80
307 – P Shields (Scotland) 79 73 76 79, W Harmston (England) 79 71 78 79, D McElroy (Ballymena) 79 70 81 77, P Murray (Limerick) 78 72 76 81, T Salminen (Finland) 78 71 77 81, F McKenna (Scotland) 77 73 79 78, R Van West (Netherlands) 76 73 77 81
308 – K McCarthy (Kinsale) 82 70 80 76, R McNamara (Headfort) 80 69 78 81, C Doran (Banbridge) 79 73 78 78, B Casey (Headfort) 77 75 77 79
309 – A Eckhardt (Finland) 79 72 80 78, C O’Malley (Westport) 77 73 81 78
310 – H Beins (Germany) 81 70 81 78
311 – J Brittain (England) 75 76 76 84
312 – D Murphy (Portarlington) 78 74 76 84
313 – R Dhondt (Belgium) 81 66 81 85, M Gaspar (Portugal) 75 75 83 80
319 – J Evans (England) 75 74 86 84
321 – C Fairweather (Knock) 73 78 81 89
