Good start to the new golf season by Cork golfers

There was a strong Cork presence at the West of Ireland in Rosses Point with a dozen golfers teeing it up in the first major championship of the season. 

Before the tournament proper started on Friday, Edward Farr, Greg O’Mahony and Roy O’Riordan booked their place in the field thanks to finishing in the top 15 at Wednesday’s qualifier.

The 120 strong field played the first Strokeplay round on Friday without any impact from the weather, but play on Saturday was abandoned due to high winds from Storm Dave which made the course unplayable. 

The matchplay qualifiers were determined on the round one scores and that left four Cork golfers in the top 64. Barry Andreson, Edward Farr, James Walsh and David Howard all made the knockout draw.

Anderson, a previous winner of the West had a 4 & 3 win over England’s Edward Reed in the first round. 

Anderson had a good start and went two up after two and extended that to a three hole lead by the turn. Reed got one back but Anderson won the 13th and 14th to give him a four hole lead with four to play. 

They both parred the 15th which gave Anderson the win and passage through to the second round. His second round match against Evan Farrell was similar with Anderson ending up three ahead after 11 holes. 

Farrell came back to level the match on the 15th but Anderson’s par on the last was enough to put him through to the last 16. He bowed out in the third round at the hands of Mark Caden.

Edward Farr started in fine form, he won the 4th and 5th holes to go two up, but his advantage was short lived as David Kitt won the next three holes. Farr won the 8th to get the match back to level. 

After a few back and fourth holes, Farr won four straight from 12 to 15 to beat Kitt 4&3. Farr faced Colm Campbell in the second round and the multiple championship winner took an early lead and closed out the match on the 15th.

James Walsh took his first round match all the way to the 18th before losing out to James Hewitt. 

Walsh was one up for much of the front nine but Hewitt got on top in the back nine and held on for a one up win. David Howard also lost out in the first round, he lost to Co Sligo’s Aodhagan Brady. 

The pair were tied after a front nine where seven holes were halved. 

Brady won 10 and 11 to go ahead and while Howard won the 13th, Brady’s wins on the 15th and 16th gave him a 3&2 win.

Cork’s Paddy Quill was very unlucky not to make it through to the matchplay phase. He finished in 65th place. 

He was in a group of 15 players that finished on 79, with six making it through and Quill was the 7th. 

He missed out by one place, his bogey on the 18th coming against him on the countback. 

Ryan Lyons was one shot further back on 80, with Conor Madigan, Darren Kelleher, Sean Reddy and Greg O’Mahony finishing on 81.

The West of Ireland will become the first major tournament of 2026 to count in Golf Ireland’s newly launched strokes gained programme. 

The programme will run as a pilot run through the 2026 season with a view to its introduction in 2027 as a new primary qualification method for all men’s and women’s championships on the Bridgestone Orders of Merit, as well as - potentially - for talent identification purposes and for selection for teams and coaching panels.

Currently championship entry is based on several criteria including order of merit and other exemptions, WAGR ranking and finally handicap index.

The Golf Ireland Strokes Gained Ratings system has been devised in partnership with Quantum Sports Data, and will be driven by results collected not only from Golf Ireland championships and events, but also from the considerable schedule of Men’s and Women’s Senior Scratch Cups which are organised by clubs all over Ireland.

Using scoring data returned to the WHS Clubhouse platform, players will receive an Adjusted Strokes Gained rating which will be driven by their scores over a rolling two-year period.

Adjusted Strokes Gained measures how many strokes better or worse a golfer performs in each round compared to an average championship-level player, accounting for course difficulty and playing conditions. 

During the pilot season the ratings will be updated once a month, on the first day of each month on which no eligible event is taking place.