Well done to Mags Smith and her Junior Cup team who faced Foxrock this afternoon. We had home advantage with three matches in Greystones but this of course can sometimes bring it’s own pressures. Mags also had to contend with our low lady, Aishling Marmion being away on holidays but, as they say, that’s what we have squads for.
At home we had Niamh Kielty out first and she never looked like losing her match, four up after nine Niamh kept it going on the back nine to win comfortably 5&4. Our third player at home, Mary Lockhart had an even bigger win. Mary won the first five holes and then halved the sixth before winning the seventh and eighth. She went down the lane seven up and it was only a matter of what margin she might win by at that stage. In the end she finished her match on the twelfth, 8&6.
With two points on the board all eyes turned to our second player out at home, Isabella Stewart who was not having it anything like as straightforward. Isabella managed a good half on the ninth to stay only one down as she headed to the back nine.
Away from home Mary Hutch was in a dog fight. Of the first nine holes only the first was halved but the pair were still as they started when coming around to begin their second nine. The back nine was not quite so ding dong and Mary managed to get her nose in front by a single hole after sixteen. The seventeenth was halved but Mary lost the eighteenth and off they went back to the first. This was halved but unfortunately Mary came unstuck on the difficult second hole and the tie was at 2:1 to Greystones.
Marguerite Hamill was our second player out in Foxrock and her match was equally tough and tight. Marguerite turned all square but lost fourteen and fifteen to find herself two down but a strong showing on the seventeenth and eighteenth, after a half on the sixteenth, leveled the match once again and she and her opponent headed for play off holes also. The play off holes were once again unkind to us and Foxrock won the match on the nineteenth. Two all in the rubber and all attention was focused on young Isabella’s match.
We needn’t have worried as Isabella played great on the back nine. She won twelve and thirteen to go one up before being pegged back to all square with a loss on the fourteenth to a par. With wins on fifteen and the par three sixteenth however Isabella was dormie two up. On the seventeenth Isabella was ten feet from the pin in three while her opponent plugged in the bank in front of the green with her third shot. Her ball was deemed to have been outside the penalty area however and she got a free drop. As it happened the ruling made little difference as Isabella held her birdie putt to win the match 3&1 and the tie for Greystones 3:2.
Congratulations to Mags and all the squad.
