Jim Wood & John Burke’s Pierce Purcell team were out this evening (18thMay) playing Foxrock in the second round of the competition.
The team saw just one change from the team that beat Hermitage convincingly less than two weeks ago in the first round with Colm Drew & Dermot Barry coming in for Gavan Campbell & Rod O’Shea.
Due to the vagaries off the GI Draw we had, once again, three matches away from home this evening so securing a win wasn’t going to be easy.
First out at home were Anthony Byrne & Neil Lawless who won the first and fifth to be one up, having lost the third, however this lead was reversed with Foxrock winning the sixth and seventh holes. The eighth & ninth were swapped and the match turned with the visitors one up.
Just behind them Andrew Nolan & Gary O’Connor, coming off the back of their excellent 6&5 victory in the Hermitage match, found themselves one down through eight but were playing well. They won the ninth to square the match and followed this up with wins on the tenth, eleventh and twelfth to go three up.
Meanwhile, in Foxrock Colm Drew & Dermot Barry led the Greystones charge but losses on the fifth & sixth saw them two down, but with a long way to go of course. Unfortunately Foxrock also won the next two and after a half on the ninth the match went to the tenth tee with Foxrock four up.
Robert Clarke & Michael Keating won the second to go one up but lost the third, fourth, sixth and eight to find themselves three down after eight holes. A win on nine steadied the ship, but only briefly unfortunately. Three further losses in succession on the tenth, eleventh and twelfth were the lads undoing and the match ended on the fifteenth, 4&3 for Foxrock.
Our anchor pair of Stephen O’Brien & Shane Power took up where they had left off when they last played together and were four up through seven, lost eight but bounced back straight away with a win on nine to be four up at the halfway point.
Gary & Andrew continued the dominance of their match with wins on the thirteenth and fourteenth (after an excellent tee shot from Gary to fifteen feet), to close out their game 5&4.
1-1 in the overall tie.
It soon became clear that the critical match was the first at home.
Colm & Dermot had battled back, with wins on the eleventh & thirteenth but the mountain they had to climb was just too high after the front nine and their match ended on the fifteenth by a margin of 3&2.
Similarly, Robert & Michael were unable to undo the damage done on the front nine and their match ended on the fifteenth, 4&3.
Our anchor match of Shane & Stephen had powered through to a fantastic 5&3 win away from home to level the match at two all.
So…..2-2 and all to play for…..
Having turned one down, Neil & Anthony lost the tenth to a par to go two down but, to their credit persevered to bring the match back to all square with wins on eleven and twelve. The Greystones pair made a great half on thirteen, after having been out of position with their tee shot, only to lose fourteen to par to go back to one down. Another unlikely half on the par five fifteenth, this time benefiting the visitors, was followed by a similar result on the sixteenth.
On the seventeenth Neil split the fairway while the Foxrock man found the rough on the right hand side of the fairway. He played a nice layup and it seemed to be evenly poised when Anthony didn’t make a perfect connection with his ball and ended up thirty yards short of the water. When it came to playing their third shot the Foxrock pair realised that they had played a wrong ball which resulted in a loss of hole and brought the match back to all square once again.
Off to the eighteenth, now with a full gallery…
Anthony’s drive veered left off the tee, as did that of his Foxrock opponent. As luck would have it the Foxrock drive was in the clear while Neil was faced with a hack out, at best, from heavy rough. Foxrock found the bunker on the right of the fairway, furthest from the green with their next while Neil was only able to advance his ball to a point requiring another chip out by Anthony, to be fair a good result given his lie. Anthony played a good shot and Neil’s approach from this point was long left. Foxrock only managed to find a similar position from the bunker – game on….
From where he was, Anthony played a good chip to ten feet and, when it took his opponents two more shots to be just inside him it looked like we were heading for playoff holes. As it played out however, Neil’s ten footer just missed the hole while the Foxrock man nailed his to win the match and the tie 3-2 to Foxrock.
A great match, down to the wire once again and hard luck to Jim, John and all the squad who have all put in so much work this year.
