Ballycastle Golf Club Competition Report

Twelve handicapper Shane began his round with a birdie at the opening hole and he went on to complete the front nine in level par before negotiating the tricky back nine in 39 strokes to win by four from Denis Allen in second place. Denis, also off twelve, played one of the best back nines of the day, covering these holes in only 37 strokes and he finished ahead of Derek Bell on count-back after both members recorded nett scores of 67.

Fourth prize went to James McNeill with a nett 68 and Saturday’s stableford prize went to Joe Gillan on the better back nine from Vincent Dowds and Terence McHugh after all three golfers recorded 39 points. Four handicapper Stephen McAfee won the gross prize in the Brass Putter with a 77 and Rory Gallagher was second ahead of Francis McGinn on count-back after both men carded 78’s in the competition.

The Club would like to express it’s thanks to our Professional, Damien McEvoy, for his sponsorship of this competition and for providing the excellent prizes on Saturday.

In Sunday’s Scramble competition, Shane Staunton made it two wins in two days after he teamed up with Michael Dallat, Rory Gallagher and Neal McAuley to card eleven birdies in a winning score of nett fifty-six. Second place went to the formidable quartet of Lawrence McQuillan, Vincent Dowds, Sean Casey and Ciaran Mort with a nett score of fifty-seven and three quarters.

Ballycastle Golf Club held a very successful promotional event on Wednesday which ran in conjunction with the regular Midweek Open Stableford competition. Local celebrities from the worlds of business, sport and television were invited to play Ballycastle and a good day was had by all despite the blustery conditions. In the end it was six handicapper Harry Sheehan who won the competition with a total of 39 points, just ahead of eleven handicapper Eamon McIlroy on count-back. Foyle member David Hetherington was third with a total of 38 points and Paddy O’Kane from Strabane won the fourth prize with a score of 37 points.

The 2012 Silver Mounted Golf Ball competition reached its conclusion during the week with the pairing of Steven Devlin and John Callan getting the better of Shay Paul Duffin and Paul Scott in the match-play final. A total of 68 pairs entered this year’s competition and they were whittled down to 32 following the qualifying day in April. Remarkably, Steven and John only just snuck into the match-play stages courtesy of Steven holding a sizeable putt on the eighteenth green in the qualifying event and here they are five months later, holding the trophy aloft!

The Casement Cup, autumn singles match-play competition, has progressed to the latter stages and Brendan Black has reached the final following his semi-final extra holes victory over Ivor Torrens in the top half of the draw. The bottom half of the draw is lagging behind a little with the quarter-final matches featuring Martin McGuigan versus Gerard McCloskey and David McMullan against James McKay still to be decided.

Green marker stableford competitions take place over the next two weekends and these form part of Ballycastle’s September Playoff Series, a new event loosely based on the PGA Tour’s Fed Ex Cup! Those members who have finished among the top 60 on the Golfer of the Year leaderboard will have their points totals reset and will compete against each other next weekend with only the top 30 stableford scores progressing on to the final weekend. Members can enter the stableford competition on both Saturday and Sunday and their higher score will count.

Looking slightly further ahead, the Turkey Season begins at Ballycastle on Saturday 6th and Sunday 7th October. As in previous seasons, the weekly competitions will be divided into two sections for handicaps 0 to 13 (section one) and 14 to 28 (section two) with the stableford winners cut one and two shots respectively. These handicap reductions are temporary and will be reinstated for Bonanza Weekend which this year is held on 15th & 16th December.

The Veterans competition for members over the age of sixty also gets under way at the start of October and will run for ten weekends with the best five stableford scores to count. This year, Veterans competitors can play on both Saturday and Sunday and the higher of the two weekend scores will be selected.

Probably the biggest change comes in the Ringer competitions where this year the Mastercard will be the first card played in the Ringer competition. In subsequent weeks of competition, three holes can be rung/re-rung per day. There will be separate Ringer competitions on Saturdays and Sundays and members can play both days but must enter the stableford competition for their scores to count.