Sugrue aiming to follow Tiger example in bid to keep ‘South’
MALLOW’S James Sugrue is planning to take a leaf out of Tiger Woods’ Carnoustie playbook as he bids to become the first player for 55 years to successfully defend the South of Ireland Championship at Lahinch.
The fairways at next year’s Dubai Duty Free Irish Open venue have been baked a golden brown hue by the summer heatwave and Sugrue plans to wear out his two-iron as often as possible in the 117 th edition of Pierse Motors Volkswagen-sponsored classic.
If he wins, he can take a giant step towards winning a place in the Irish team for the Home Internationals at Royal Dornoch next month as “the South” is the penultimate event in the Bridgestone Order of Merit series which will see the top two points winners after next month’s AIG Irish Close earn a coveted spot on the Ireland team.
“I’m looking forward to it,” Sugrue (21) said before setting off for Lahinch, where he defied wind and rain to beat Naas’ Conor O’Rourke, now a professional, in last year’s final.
“It should be a good week. It was raining and quite windy last year. I’m told the course is fairly brown at this stage so the conditions will be completely different to last year.”
Sugrue is sixth in the Bridgestone Order of Merit but knows that a win could potentially see him leapfrog leader Robin Dawson, who is on duty for Great Britain and Ireland with Portmarnock’s Conor Purcell and Kinsale’s John Murphy in the St Andrews Trophy match against the Continent of Europe in Finland.
“Hopefully I can make the Home Internationals,” Sugrue told the GUI portal Golfnet. “That’s the plan.”
He’s shown form recently too, firing an eight-under-par 64 in Regional Qualifying for The Open before coming up short in Final Qualifying for Carnoustie.
He watched last week’s Major with interest and believing he’s a better player than he was 12 months ago, he knows what he has to do to cope with fast and firm conditions.
LONG IRONS
“All the players that finished well were the ones that were hitting it straight and hitting a lot of long irons,” Sugrue said of The Open.
“I think if you take a similar gameplan to Tiger Woods, you won’t be far away at Lahinch.”
Competition will be red hot on the Clare coast with Castle’s Alex Gleeson, West of Ireland champion Robert Brazill from Naas, Kilkenny’s Mark Power and Waterford’s Eanna Griffin all ranked ahead of the Mallow man in the Bridgestone Order of Merit race and gunning for the coveted title.
If he wins, Sugrue will be the first player to retain the famous old trophy since Killarney’s Michael Guerin com- pleted a hat-trick of victories with a 2&1 win over David Sheahan in 1963.
Despite the absence of Great Britain and Ireland players Dawson, Purcell and Murphy, there is a strong field in Lahinch.
Galway’s Ronan Mullarney, 2016 runner-up Rowan Lester from Hermitage, Douglas’ Peter O’Keeffe and Dundalk’s Caolan Rafferty are also vying to make the 64 qualifiers for the matchplay stages on Friday.
Alex Fitzpatrick, brother of Ryder Cup player Matt, was due to tee it up but he has opted to take up an invitation to compete in the European Tour’s Porsche European Open in Germany instead.