Another busy year ahead for the Juniors

THIS year looks like being another busy year for the Junior golfers of Kerry with a packed calendar of events getting underway during the Easter holidays which sees the commencement of the Kerry Junior League played over eleven outings for teams of seven boys with the best five stableford cards counting for the team.

The first outing of the year takes place at Tralee on Tuesday March 27th followed by Ballybunion on Wednesday April 4th and quickly followed by Waterville the following day Thursday April 5.

The league then takes a break and resumes when the schools have closed, and the exams are over, with round four on Friday June 29th at Killorglin.

Round five is at Castleisland on Monday July 2nd followed by round six at Ceann Sibeal on Monday July 9 and round seven at Dooks on Monday July 16.

Rounds eight and nine will be at Ring of Kerry on Monday July 23 and Kenmare on Monday July 30 before a real treat with round ten at the newly-opened Hogs Head on a date yet to be confirmed and the final round will take place at Killarney’s Killeen course on Monday August 20.

As if the eleven rounds of the Junior League isn’t enough to keep our young players busy there’s also the Irish Junior Foursomes qualifying round at Tralee on March 30 where Ballybunion, Tralee, Killarney, Dooks and Kanturk will battle it out with the top two teams qualifying for the match-play stages.

Ballybunion went all the way to the All-Ireland final in this event last year only to lose out to Bangor and no doubt with most of last year’s team still eligible, the North Kerry club will be going all out to go one better this year.

The Fred Daly Trophy also gets underway during the Easter break with round one on Sunday April 8th where Killarney take on Berehaven at Kenmare.

Last year’s Munster finalists Ballybunion have a bye in round one and contest round two where they will play Kanturk in Kenmare on April 15th with Doneraile awaiting the winners of the round one match at Kenmare on the same day.

Elsewhere in round two, Dooks take on Newcastlewest and Tralee meet Castleisland at Killarney’s Mahony’s Point course on the same day.

Later in the season during the month of August there are the John Molyneux, JB O’Shea and Joe Quinlan Shields to be contested along with the Kerry Boys Championship and the Munster Under-age championships so like I said previously, it’s a busy year ahead.