Disappointment for Ballybunion ladies

BALLYBUNION’S hopes of a second All-Ireland title this year were dashed in the final of the Ladies Revive Active Fourball at Royal Tara on Sunday when they went down by the odd match in five to Killymoon from Tyrone.

Following their recent success in the Junior Cup at Carton House, hopes were high in Ballybunion of a second All-Ireland title as the ladies headed for Royal Tara, a “Happy Hunting Ground” for the club on their previous visit in 2013 when they lifted the Junior Cup on that occasion.

Portumna were the opposition in the semi-finals on Saturday and it was the Galway club who secured the first point as Irish seniors International Suzanne Corcoran & Mary McElroy beat Mary Sheehy & Louise Griffin by 3/2 in the top match.

Ballybunion were soon level as Susan Gilmore & Janice O’Connell beat Claire Callanan & Brid Kelly by the same margin in the second match and the North Kerry club added a second point soon after in match four when Patricia Joyce & Mary O’Donoghue dispatched Anita Carey & Bernie Kilmartin by 7/6.

The third and winning point then came in match five as Cartiona Corrigan & Pudge O’Reilly beat Anne Fahy & Mary Madden by 2/1. The third game involving Portumna’s Sinead Lohan & Carmel Cunningham and Ballybunion’s Margaret McAuliffe & Lorraine Canty was called in with the Ballybunion pair one up playing the seventeenth.

Killymoon from Cookstown in Tyrone edged out Lucan from Dublin in the other semi-final to set up a classic Kerry versus Tyrone clash on Sunday.

Killymoon put the first point on the board in match two where Carmel Hagan & Catherine Irwin beat Susan Gilmore and Janice O’Connell by 4/3 after a great comeback having lost two of the first three holes.

They were level after six but the Killymoon pair then won three of the next four holes and there was no catching them after that.

Lorraine Canty and Margaret McAuliffe (fresh from her appearance for the Irish ladies in the Seniors Home Internationals) soon had Ballybunion level taking match three against Heather Campbell & Donna Mulholland by a 2/1 margin, having led for most of the seventeen holes played.

Match number one however, was the be the one that turned the final on its head where Mary Sheehy & Louise Griffin were having a right battle with Killymoon’s Diane McIvor and Avril Marshall. There was never much between the pairs as they were level after six, level again after eight before Sheehy & Griffin forged ahead at the 13th, a lead they still held after seventeen holes, but just when it looked like a point for Ballybunion, the Killymoon pair won the 18th to take the match to extra holes and after a half at the nineteenth, they edged home on the 20th meaning Ballybunion now needed to win the final two games for victory.

Catriona Corrigan & Pudge O’Reilly delivered match five for Ballybunion with a 3/1 win over Anne McMahon and Kate Lennon to level at 2-2 overall, leaving the outcome on match four where Patricia Joyce & Mary O’Donoghue were having a right old tussle with Killymoon’s Kathryn Kerr & Colleen Conway.

Killymoon went one up after two, they were level after four and there was still nothing between them after fourteen but Kerr & Conway edged one ahead after fifteen and maintained that lead until the final hole where a birdie four from 23 handicapper Conway sealed the match by a two-hole margin and the title for Killymoon.

So, no fourth All-Ireland title for Kerry and no third All Ireland medal for Mary Sheehy, but it was still an amazing season for golf in Kerry and at the beginning of the year if anyone had said that golf teams from Kerry would contest five All-Ireland finals, winning three, then you would have happily taken that.