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.