Monkstown’s Sean Desmond made it through to the matchplay stage on his debut in the West of Ireland Championship today.  Desmond shot a second successive 73 at Co Sligo and finished inside the top twenty.  Sean had a colourful card today, five bogies and a double were offset by five birdies on the testing links track.  Tomorrow he has a 7.27am start where he’ll face Robert Brazill from Naas.

Desmond was the only Cork qualifier in a very narrow field that saw just three Cork golfers get into the tournament.  James Sugrue finished 20 places outside the matchplay cut while Kinsale’s John Murphy had a tough debut with rounds of 79 and 77.  Conor O’Rourke secured the Silver Medal as the best qualifier on -2, while just two others managed to break par.  Three days of matchplay golf follow as all 64 qualifiers will have hopes of winning the season’s first major event.

West of Ireland Matchplay Live Scoring