Murphy retains Kerry Boys title in Ballybunion

DEFENDING champion John Murphy from Kinsale successfully defended his Kerry boys title at a very windy Ballybunion last week defeating home favourite Ronan Cross in a very exciting final on Friday afternoon.

The front nine resembled a game of chess as both boys jousted with one another and as the weather began to deteriorate with rain arriving to add to the swirling winds, they produced some excellent golf with Murphy one ahead at the turn.

Cross, however, won three of the next four holes to edge two ahead in front of the home support but a poor drive from him on the 14th saw Murphy reduce the deficit and the defending champion was level two holes later, claiming the par three sixteenth where Cross missed the green with his tee shot and ended up in heavy rough from where he failed to make a par.

It must be said that Murphy was a little fortunate with a lucky bounce off a golf cart on the par five seventeenth hole where his second shot was heading for the heavy rough but he made the most of it and hit a magnificent iron shot that bounced on to the green from where he made an unlikely par.

Cross missed a five-footer for a winning birdie and so they were all square going up the final hole where it was Murphy’s turn to miss on the last green as his eight-footer for a match-winning birdie slid by the hole meaning a play-off.

Sadly at the ninteenth, Cross found trouble from the tee and failing to get back on the fairway with his second shot, he succumbed to a regulation par as Murphy became the first player in over thirty years, to win back to back titles.

Since the event began in 1972, Ballybunion’s Tommy Corridan (1974, ’75 & ’76), Killarney’s Tomás Kelleher (’83 & ’84) and Ballybunion’s Vincent Moloney (’85 & ’86) were the only champions to successfully defend their title.