Ballybunion through in Senior Cup

AFTER a weekend of great action in the qualifiers, Ballybunion’s Senior Cup team are through to the Munster semi-final where they will take on Dungarvan in Tralee over the weekend of August 12 & 13.

The West Munster area saw the qualifiers also played at Tralee’s magnificent links at Barrow and there were some exciting matches.

In the only preliminary match Dooks had received a “Walkover” from Ring of Kerry and went down to the host club Tralee (3-2) in Saturday morning’s opener as Killarney ousted Glengarriff (4-1), Ballybunion beat Kanturk (3-2) and Doneraile beat Newcastlewest(4-1).

In the afternoon Ballybunion beat Doneraile(3-2) but all of the excitement took place in the other match between Tralee and Killarney.

Tralee took the first two matches but Killarney hit back to take the fourth and fifth leaving the outcome depending on the third match which Killarney eventually won on the fourth tie hole.

In Sunday morning’s final, it looked for a while like Killarney were going to win it, but wins from Eddie Stack, John Molyneux and Senan Carroll completed the Ballybunion comeback to take the match by three and a half to one and a half.

Ballybunion’s former Munster Interprovincial Eddie Stack was certainly the star of the show over the weekend winning all three of his matches by 7/6 and he along with his team mates will now have six weeks or so to prepare for their semi-final clash with Dungarvan while Limerick Golf Club take on Mallow in the other half of the draw.

I was asked over the weekend why I hadn’t done my famous predictions for the Senior Cup and it was all down to not having enough space but I would have been wrong anyway as I would have fancied Tralee on their home turf.