Bright Castle golf
While the eyes of the golfing world were firmly fixed on Portrush on Sunday past for the final round of the Open Championship, Donal Smith and his Bright Castle team were taking on Clandeboye Golf Club, hoping to secure a place in the semi-final of this year’s Ulster Senior Men Over 50s competition.
Having overcome Ardglass, Mayobridge, and Edenmore en route to the quarter-finals, another tight match was expected—and that’s exactly how things panned out. Clandeboye were the slight favourites given they were the designated home side for the tie, and Bright’s chances weren’t helped any further following a monumental error from team captain, Smith.
Having previously played inter-club matches on the Dufferin course at Clandeboye, a practice round was booked and played on that particular course. So it came as a bit of a surprise when the Castle pairings of Ian Craig and Al Higgins, and Brendan Savage and Mark Quinn, discovered they were playing their matches on the other course at Clandeboye—the Ava course. Try as they may, both pairings fell to defeats, meaning victories in the two games at Bright Castle were needed to force a play-off.
Following some decent weekend performances of late, Declan Toman was drafted in to partner Allan Taylor in game one, and the new partnership gelled perfectly to produce a 2 and 1 victory. Everything now depended on the outcome of the last game at Bright Castle, featuring team captain Donal Smith and his long-suffering partner, Bryan Smyth.
Following a very tight front nine, the Bright pairing nudged into a two-hole lead courtesy of some fine pars from Smith on the back nine, and when both Clandeboye players found the water on the par-three 16th hole, Smyth drained his 20-foot birdie putt to secure a 3 and 2 win, which meant that a play-off would be needed at Clandeboye to see which side would progress.
Ian and Al were nominated to take up the challenge, and after the first play-off hole was halved, it was Al’s time to shine. A par at the second play-off hole was enough to send Bright through to the Ulster semi-final, where they will face either Killymoon or County Cavan.
Another great team performance—we wish them the very best of luck going forward.
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