CIT Golf Club made a major announcement recently when they partnered with Fota Island Academy.  The new partnership between will facilitate student membership at the Academy.  The Academy at the famous Fota Island Resort makes an ideal base for the CIT Golf Squad, meeting their requirements with its excellent indoor and outdoor facilities.  Along with this, as Academy Members the nine students have a weekly allocation of range ball credit and, most importantly they will have valuable access to on course practice with the inclusion of playing the nine holes on the Barryscourt course in their membership.  Fred Twomey, the Munster GUI High Performance Lead Coach & CIT Golf Coach and Fota Island’s Director of Golf Kevin Morris arranged the new partnership together, with the initial approach suggested by CIT student David O’Sullivan, who has been the CIT Golf Club Captain for the past 4 years.  “Fota Island Golf Academy is a state of the art facility that gives all of the CIT Golf Development Squad a great opportunity to develop our game at the highest level,” said David O’Sullivan, current CIT Golf Club Captain.  The 4th year student in Business at CIT, and who plays off 6 has been steadily building the golf programme in CIT and he sees this as the latest step in giving the golf squad a higher profile in the college.  “We are very lucky to have these superior facilities right on our doorstep in Cork, providing us with incredible opportunities to work on every aspect of the game, all in the one space and session.  Fota Island Golf Academy allows us to practice and play golf during the week too, which many of us haven’t been able to do since we started college.  In prime condition all year round even during the winter months, having access to such a variety of practice greens and range facilities gives us a huge advantage in keeping our long and short game up to scratch, and having the nine holes accessible to us is great as we can bring our practice to the course!”

The golf squad members, who include Conor Roche, Gary Ward and John Hickey will have a busy few weeks ahead according to the Captain.  “The winter league is going very strong again this year against our rivals UCC” continued O’Sullivan.  “We also train on a fortnightly basis with Munster coach Fred Twomey and every month with TPI instructor Peter O’Keeffe.  The Intervarsity’s Matchplay take place in Woodbrook GC on March 1-2 and we are putting in three teams of four golfers.  The Irish Intervarsities then take place in Tralee on 10-12th April.  We expect our players to compete highly in both competitions.”  CIT’s President Dr. Barry O’Connor is pleased with this new partnership between Fota Island Resort and CIT. “Membership of the Academy at Fota Island Resort, one of the finest academies in the country, will be of huge benefit to the CIT students, allowing year-round practice and giving these keen golfers the opportunity to ensure their game is sharp throughout the academic year while representing CIT.  We are grateful to Fota Island Resort and Kevin Morris in particular for facilitating this partnership.”

Last week the GUI launched their 2018 Championships and the pace of play regulations have been revised to remove the timing schedule from the normal enforcement — now a group will be considered out of position if they are, simply, more than one starting interval behind the group in front. Timing schedules will continue to be used to track the first group of each championship day, and to guide enforcement by referees.  It’s also highly likely that Ready Golf will be used to manage slow or weather affected rounds.  Last year the initiative was welcomed by golfers in several events and it was shown to cut up to 30 minutes from each round.  the points system for the Willie Gill Order of Merit will be significantly changed.  Only eight events will count (all domestic), the Irish Amateur Open and Close Championships, the North, South, East and West of Ireland Championships and the Munster and Connacht Stroke Play Championships.  In addition, automatic places will be available on the Home Internationals Team from the Order of Merit.