Irish Women's Amateur Close ChampionshipThere's nothing cosmetic about the emergence of new blood in Irish women's golf. "I think it's great to see so many new faces," remarked former Curtis Cup player Eileen Rose Power, who safely negotiated a route through to the second round of the Lancome Irish women's close championship at The Island yesterday on a day when the big surprise was delivered by a namesake, but not a relation, of the three-time national champion.At The Island
Vicki Power, a 19-year-old student at Troy State in Alabama, was first introduced to golf when she dragged her father Gabriel's trolley around the neighbouring Balcarrick course as a six-year-old. When she first took up the game at the age of 12, she was given a handicap of 43 but Power's advancement since then has been such that a queue of American colleges sought her signature when she travelled Stateside for her university education.
Yesterday, on yet another ideal day for golfing combat on this wonderfully conditioned north county Dublin links, she confirmed that progress when beating international Maura Morrin - who was second in the strokeplay qualifying - by 3 and 2 in the first round of matchplay.
Otherwise, all of the favoured players, including Curtis Cup debutante Claire Coughlan and defending champion Martina Gillen, had comfortable enough wins, while Sinead Keane got the measure of her international team-mate Maria Dunne in one of the best matches of the day.
The real upset, though, was delivered by Power.
"I'm genuinely shocked," remarked Power, a girls international, who plays her golf out of Brampton Park, near Cambridge, and who decided to declare for Ireland rather than England. "I was expecting to lose the match
. . . they handed me the "I Won" card (given to both players at the start of play) and I just wanted to throw it in the bin."
In a way, such low expectations were to serve Power well. After losing the first hole, she proceeded to bounce straight back by taking the second and, by the turn, had taken a two-hole lead. In her attempt to fight back, Morrin cut off too much in her play of the 10th and put two balls out of bounds down the right. Now three down, Morrin's fightback begun on the 11th, where she rolled in a 40-footer for birdie, and then birdied the 13th to reduce the deficit to just one hole.
But the 14th, a par four of 330 yards that runs down by Malahide estuary and which possesses one of the narrowest fairways in the game, proved terminal to Morrin, where she pushed her tee-shot out of bounds and, after failing to find the green in three with her second ball, conceded the hole to Power who was on the collar of the green in two.
Power won the 15th in birdie, and finished the match on the 16th where she did the important job of finding the green with her six-iron tee-shot.
Power left the 100 degrees heat of Alabama only last Friday - where she is studying international business and where she won Freshman Honours in her college golf conference - and has shown no effects from the drop in temperature here. Indeed, playing around The Island is a new experience for her.
"Even though I once lived up the road in Donabate, and passed by regularly on the way to play Balcarrick, I never got to play the course," said Power, who will meet Ballybofey's Darragh McGowan in the second round, with the enticing prospect of a third-round match with Irish strokeplay champion Coughlan should both progress.
Ironically enough, given Morrin was on the receiving end of one result, another win of distinction yesterday was achieved by Keane, also of The Curragh. In her two previous encounters with fellow-international Dunne - last year's beaten finalist - Keane had lost out. Yesterday, she changed that particular statistic with a 2 and 1 win that demonstrated the player's fortitude.
Having trailed by two holes after six, Keane won the seventh (when Dunne missed the green left with her approach) and the eighth (where the Skerries player pulled her drive left and failed to find the ball within the regulation five minutes) to go level and took a grip on the match by winning the 10th, 12th and 13th and losing the 16th proved to be only a minor blip.
Tracy Eakin, a former European Tour professional playing in her first national championship since being reinstated as an amateur, was forced to go to tie holes to beat Mary Sheehy at the 19th and so earn a second-round tilt at leading strokeplayer Sue Phillips, while international Heath Nolan, of Shannon, was also required to play the first hole again before overcoming The Island's Angie Dwyer, who had missed a short birdie putt on the 18th in regulation play to win the match.
First Round: S Phillips (Woodbrook) bt M Cassidy (Co Louth) 6 and 5; T Eakin (Killarney) bt M Sheehy (Tralee) at 19th; H Nolan (Shannon) bt A Dwyer (The Island) at 19th; D Walsh (Milltown) bt P Doran (Donabate) 3 and 1; T Delaney (Carlow) bt S O'Sullivan (Galway) 5 and 4; ER Power (Kilkenny) bt J Gannon (Co Louth) 6 and 4; S Keane (The Curragh) bt M Dunne (Skerries) 2 and 1; M Gillen (Beaverstown) bt M Diamond (Royal Portrush) 3 and 2; T Mangan (Ennis) bt C Tucker (Limerick) 6 and 5;
D Smith (Co Louth) bt A Kilmartin (Warrenpoint) 3 and 2; S McVeigh (Royal Co Down) bt L Holmes (Enniscrone) 1 hole; H Jones (Strabane) bt P Murphy (The Island) 3 and 2; C Coughlan (Cork) bt A Taylor (Malahide) 5 and 3; S Hayes (Hermitage) bt N Quigg (City of Derry) 2 and 1; D McGowan (Ballybofey) bt T O'Reilly (Grange) 5 and 4; V Power (Brampton Park) bt M Morrin (The Curragh) 3 and 2.
Tee-times second round: 9.0 (and nine minute intervals) - Phillips v Eakin; Nolan v Walsh; Delaney v ER Power; Keane v Gillen; Mangan v Smith; McVeigh v Jones; Coughlan v Hayes; McGowan v Power.
Third round starts at 1.45.
