Higgins and Sugrue win PGA Fourball
DAN Sugrue from Dooks and David Higgins from Waterville teamed up last week to win the Munster PGA Fourball Championship at Fota Island.
Thirty club professionals took part in the event which is the first of a series of four which will be played before Christmas.
Higgins is a regular winner in this series but it was a welcome return to form for Sugrue who had a serious operation just over a year ago and his five birdies on the day which included three in a row, combined with three more from Higgins, saw the pair return an eight under par 64 to win by three shots from Peter Hickey (Cork GC) & David Ryan (Cahir Park) who had a 67.
In third place also on 67 were Fota’s Jack Howard & Killarney’s Diarmuid Fraser while Monkstown’s Cian McNamara and Padraig Dooley from Glanmire Golf Performance Centre were fourth also on 67.
The next event in the series takes place at Killarney followed by the third at Castlemartyr and the final one in the series will be a match against the Leinster professionals which will be used as a fundraiser for fellow PGA Professional Ian St John who was struck down with illness in 2016.
The popular pro from the Rush Golf Club in County Dublin is a native of Tramore and gave up much of his free time teaching children with special needs.
He became completely paralysed overnight in August of 2016 after playing in the Ballyliffin and an MRI revealed a revealed a massive cancerous tumour on his spine. His wife, Orla, was eight months pregnant at the time and gave birth to a baby girl a month later while Ian was having his first round of chemotherapy.
Spinal surgery and a chemotherapy and radiation program was undertaken by Ian for the following eight months as an inpatient at Beaumont Hospital and, thankfully, the cancer is in remission, but he remains paralysed and has sadly resigned his position at Rush and moved his wife and daughter back home to Tramore to be close to family.
In July of this year, Ian had regained enough strength to fly to England to visit specialists in spinal cord injury physiotherapy in Cambridge and the week-long treatment was something of a success as two weeks later he noticed a little stimulus in his left leg.
Ian is now pursuing this specialist neurological care and while treatment, physiotherapy, equipment and travel are proving expensive, they are also proving very worthwhile.
His fellow Irish PGA professionals are conducting a fund-raising drive all over the country to purchase equipment for him to use at home and to fund visits to Cambridge for further intense physio.