O’ Grady Cup V Donabate

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We had 3 matches at home and we had a mixture of new and not so new members making up the team. In pole position were the ever dependable and very experienced Michael O'Halloran and Mary Cole. They didn’t let us down and were well up very early on in their match and it finished 6 up on the 14th hole.

Next out were Johnny Lappin and Odette O'Dea. The match swung one way then the other but they found themselves 3 down early in the back nine and it was time to dig in, which they did, and they won 4 holes in a row and finished the match 2 up on the 18th. Excellent result which will give them great encouragement going forward. It goes to prove the point that, particularly in mixed foursomes, you should never give up.

The tail enders were made up of the very experienced Pat Lyons and the new kid on the block Kate Moran. They played extremely well throughout and had their noses in front from early on and they were called in while playing the 18th when they were 1 up.

The match itself was played in great spirits and bar the time when Johnny and Odette found themselves 3 down everybody seemed to be enjoying themselves. It was great to see the support in Sutton for what was an early round match.

Sorry to say that we are losing Kate who is playing in the All Ireland mixed and therefore she cannot play in the O'Grady Cup again this year. We will miss her but we wish her the best of luck in her match next weekend.

Away

In Donabate we had two pairings David Jones and Orna Cassidy and our Vice Captain Mark Hogan and Sarah Gallagher.

We got a very warm welcome from our opposition in Donabate where some of the players had met our team members before and a bit of a grudge going on... Donabate were out to get a win as Sutton had beaten them recently in the McDonald Cup.

We started well in both matches and we were never down by more than one. For the first 9 there was very steady golf with David & Orna 2 up through 9, sinking some great putts, their opposition was very strong and it came down to putting for the wins. This is a very impressive partnership with killer instinct and they finished 4 up on the 16th.

Our second pairing Mark and Sarah were also very steady and managed to get ahead by 2 at 9 and kept pressure on the opposition, Mark was playing particularly well his most impressive shot was on 11 a par 5, where he played a rescue 4 for the second shot to put it in the middle of the green, that rattled the opposition, when our team birdied.

Mark on 17 hit a magnicicent 2nd shot into the green leaving Sarah an uphill putt which she stitched to 2 feet and he finished with a par to go 2 Up at 17

We had managed to get two away wins very impressive!