*Mary McNamara (left) and Hannah O’Brien (right) from Woodstock, winners of the Granard cup national title
WOODSTOCK Golf Club were crowned winners of the newly named Flogas Vision Ireland Granard Cup, following the Grand final of the tournament which took place at Mullingar Golf Club.
Mary McNamara and Hannah O’Brien from Woodstock took the spoils at one of the longest running charity club competitions in Ireland where all proceeds go to Vision Ireland (formerly NCBI).
In 2024, over 15,000 people from over 212 clubs around the country took part with one male pair from each club advancing to the Holmpatrick Regional and one female pair advancing to the Granard Regional. The four regional finals took place at Castletroy, Wicklow, Lucan and Strandhill Golf clubs. The top three winners of each of the regionals progressed to the All-Ireland Final at Mullingar.
The winners of the Granard and Holmpatrick Cups will get to experience a golfer’s trip of a lifetime to the historic St. Andrews where they will stay for three nights at the magnificent Rusacks Hotel and will play three of the St Andrew’s Golf courses including The Eden, New Course and The Castle Course.
Mary McNamara and Hannah O’Brien scored 54 points to win the Granard cup from the K club with 50 points.
Meanwhile on the home front, Paul Coote is the Golfer of The Year for 2024 at Woodstock. Paul dominated the year winning the Al Hayes Singles Matchplay and the AMR Golf fourball Matchplay with his playing partner Adrian Kearney. Paul picked up more points in the April, May and September medals as well as Jarlath Fahy’s Captain’s prize and the club championship.
Stephen Clancy (19) emerged as the winner of the Woodstock masters competition at the weekend when he scored 45 points.
He had a comfortable ten points to spare over Barry McNamara (15) who was one ahead of Barry Scanlan (12). The leading qualifier was Bryan Clune.
In the club singles at the weekend John McBride (12) was the winner with 38 points while Kieran Dromey (6) won the gross with 31 points, The category 1 winner was Ken Hogan (10) with 35 points from Mark Sweeney (8) also with 35 points.
Category 2 was won by Martin Nugent (12) with 37 points while Greg Fogarty (27) won category 3, also with 37 points.
This weekend’s competition will be a club fourball. Week 2 of the ladies Christmas hampers competition at Woodstock saw Mary Gleeson take the honours with 28 points. Tuesday’s 18 hole stableford competition was won by Kathleen McEnery with 31 points.
East Clare Golf Club:
East Clare senior men had a match against their Loughrea counterparts last week and this resulted in a narrow win for East Clare who had 286 points as against 280 for their Galway opponents.
The top six cards for East Clare were returned by Teddy O’Hanlon and Chris Davis 50; Danny Minogue and Jackie McHugh 48; Terry Coughlan and Jim Fahy 48; Michael Hayes and Brendan Moloney 47, Tom Larkin and Sean Ahern 47; Ailbe McDonnell and J.J. Barton 46.
The winner of the ladies 18 hole stableford competition was Geraldine Finnegan (30) with 41 points from Siobhan Shanahan (15) with 37 points. The gross was won by Evelyn Skehan (17).
The ladies Wednesday competition was won by :Brid Hayes,Siobhan Mulcahy and Brid Gurnett from Ursula Hogan, Hannah Guinnane and Pauline Nugent witsh third place filled by Mary Bugler, Phil Burke and Noreen Doyle.
Dromoland Golf Club:
Thomas Cooney (6) was the winner of the Fred O’Flanagan V Par competition at Dromoland with 3 up from Diarmuid O’Connor (7) who had a similar score. Brian Arthur (9) was third with 2 up while Enda Heneghan (scratch) won the gross with 1 up while the category for handicaps 20 and over was won by |Mwrvyn Frazer (20) with 2 up.
The 9 hole competition last week was won by Brian McMahon with 21 points from Mark Downes who had a similar score with Sean Hayes in third spot with 29 points.
Mairead Toomey won the ladies 18 hole stableford competition from Cathy Casey while the 9 hole competition was also won by Mairéad Toomey with 22 points from Anne McMahon with 20 points, Brenda Fitzgibbon with 19 points and Mary Rogers with 18 points.
Ennis Golf Club:
Golfer of the Year for 2024 at Ennis is Daire Meehan.
The Masters final, the last golfer of the year competition for the season, was won by Michael Neylon(18) with 68 from Ger Donohue(16) who had a similar score. They were one ahead of Flan Lyons(11) and Pat McInerney(19) who also had 69,
The men’s competition at the weekend was a scotch foursomes which was won by Flan Downes and Barry Lee with 42 points from Thomas Gallery and Brendan Pyne with 42 points with third spot filled by Ronan Herbert and Diarmuid Meere also with 42 points.
Friday’s open singles winner was Ian Myatt (9) with 40 points from Geoffrey O’Toole (13) with 38 points.
The Knox cup, a men’s singles matchplay competition was won by Andrew Turner from Donagh Stack with Flan Lyons in third spot and Niall Hannon in fourth.
The Cyril Walsh fourball matchplay competition was won by John M Lillis and David Pender from Gerry Daly and John Nevin. Third spot was filled by Mark Geraghty and Jim Griffin followed by Niall Hannon and Martin O’Neill.
The Koley Cup matchplay winner is Michael Irwin from Vincent Healy with Patrick Cuddy in third spot followed by Gerard Connellan.
Seamus McEnery won the Abbey cup matchplay from Donagh Stack. The leading qualifier was Flan Downes (12) with 63.
The ladies 18 hoke masters competition, sponsored by The County Boutique took place at Ennis on Saturday when Bridie Hanrahan (19) won with 70 nett from Sinéad O’Sullivan (47) with 74 nett and Rose Enright (20) with 77 nett.
Mary T McMahon (14) won the gross with 88 while the best qualifier was Mary Lenihan.
Meanwhile the 9 hole masters competition was won by Mary Leahy (17) with 18 points from Geraldine O’Mahoney (15) with a similar score. Geraldine Cummins (22) was third with 17 points while the best qualifier was Mary Walshe.
In last week’s ladies Wednesday competition the overall winner of the 18 hole stableford was Joan Murphy (34) with 38 points.
Suzanne Deane (12) won division 1 with 36 points while Monica Finnerty (28) won division 2 with 37 points
The overall winner in the 9 hole competition was Bernie Brooks (24) with 18 points while the divisions were-won by Carmel Verling(11) with 16 points, Mary Leahy (17) with 18 points and Sinéad O’Sullivan (23) with 17 points
Last week’s ladies senior competition was won by Joan Murphy, Martina Corbett and Alice D’Arcy with 45 from Mary Glynn, Margaret Flanagan, and Anne McMahon with 50.75 with third place filled by Nuala D’Auria, Mary Murray and Bernie Brooks with 58.8.
Kilrush Golf Club:
The winner of the men’s open singles at Kilrush last weekend was Thomas Coffey (13) with 41 points, Brian Scanlan (10) won category 1 with 37 points from David Keane (9) with 35 points. David Browne (19) won category 2 with 38 points from Cyril Kelly (17) with 37 points
John McNeilis (20) was the category 3 winner with 38 points from Eamonn Rigney (21) with 37 points. The nines were won by Michael J Hogan with 20 points and Eoin Fitzgerald with 19 points
Gort Golf Club:
Friday’s men’s open singles at Gort was won by John Ryan (20) with 35 points while the gross was won by Padraic Landers (9) with 27 points. The weekend competition was an 18 hole stroke event sponsored by Adrian Quinn Car Sales when the winner was David Daly (16) with 66.
The category winners were Jerry Leahy (13) with 67, Steve Mahon (16) with 66 and Kieran Reidy (24) with 71 while the gross was won by Gerard Connors (4) with 73.
Fanny O’Deas society:
A big number of golfers from the Fanny O’Deas society in Lissycasey played for their captain, Declan Conway’s prize at Castlebar at the weekend.
In ideal weather conditions the winner was Liam Hayes (17) with 38 points. He had one to spare over Peter O’Leary with Jim Carmody, also with 37 points, in third spot followed by Gerry Lernihan with 36 and Kevin Clohessy, also with 36.
Brian Conway had the best gross while Noel O’Shea and Dermot Custy won the nines. Pat Delap was nearest the pin and Niall Donegan had the longest drive while Robert McMahon won the past captain’s category.
The scramble at Westport next day was won by Eibhear Slattery, Paddy Corcoran and Brian Conway from Dermot Custy, T.J. Monahan, Jim Carmody and Thomas Monahan.
The next outing will be to Shannon on October 12.
