O’Regan wins back County Matchplay Senior title
Jason O’Connor
TWO days of Matchplay in Listowel and Tralee at the weekend saw the County Matchplay winners for 2018 decided in the adult and U-16 grades. On Sunday in the Gents events in Tralee, Jason O’Regan defeated defending champion John McGrath of Deerpark in the first semi-final to set up a Senior Final with Tralee’s Eamon Sheedy who had seen beaten Listowel’s Declan McCarron in the other semi-final. O’Regan was a 5&4 winner in the decider to again win the event.
The other two Men’s grades played saw both titles go to Deerpark. Adam Kelly from the Killarney club was the Intermediate winner after defeating Listowel’s Killian O’Gorman in the semi-finals and going on to defeat another Listowel player, Richard Heffernan, in the decider. Richard had beaten Tralee’s Danny O’Leary in the other semi-final.
The Junior event was won by David Harnett as he defeated another Deerpark player in Noel Moynihan in the decider by 3&2. David had defeated Listowel’s John Heffernan in the Ssemi-finals while Noel had been victorious over another Deerpark player in Darragh O’Callaghan in his semi-final.
The U-16 events in Listowel on Saturday saw the U-16 Championship semi-finals contested between Listowel’s Jake Shine and Deerpark’s Robbie Harnett with Conor Leahy (Listowel) and Jack McCarthy (Deerpark) in the other semi-final. Jake and Jack were the winners to set up a decider that Jake won after falling behind to Jack early on by 4&3.
The Plate section of the U-16 was won by Deerpark’s Cillian Courtney who defeated his clubmate Ryan Neeson in the Final.
The U-13 Championship semi-final saw Joey McCarthy of Deerpark defeat Listowel’s Cillian O’Connor in the first Semi-final while Conor Sweeney of Listowel defeated Deerpark’s Nathan Cronin at the last hole in the other semi-final. A tight Final between Joey and Conor eventually came all the way down to the last hole which Joey won for a 1up victory. Listowel’s Jayden Chute was the winner of the U-13 Plate meanwhile defeating Deerpark’s Brian McCarthy in the Final.
Returning to Cillian Courtney he presented Ireland with great distinction in the International Challenge with Seapoint in Termonfeckin, Co Louth last Tuesday week as despite losing his doubles match alongside Limerick’s Patrick Mitchell he won his Singles encounter to help Ireland to an eventual 13-5 success.
This weekend is the one we have been waiting for over the last two years as Deerpark plays host to the 2018 National Ladies and Gents Inter-County Pitch & Putt Championships.
This will be the third time a National Inter-County will have been held in Kerry after Castleisland hosting the Gents event back in 1968 with Tralee hosting both grades in 1995, and now Deerpark hosting both as well 23 years later.
The County Board wishes the club the very best with the hosting of the event as well as the Kerry team of Damien Fleming, John McGrath and Jason O’Brien (all Deerpark) along with Jason O’Regan (Tralee), Declan McCarron (Listowel) and James Dignan (Castleisland) along with panellists Jason Cregan (Tralee) and Aidan O’Connor (Castleisland) the best in trying to win the Men’s event for the county for the first time since 1986.
The action gets underway at 8am on Saturday and is followed by an 8.30am start on Sunday.