*Eoin Magill.
FIVE players from the host club, Lahinch, are, this week, competing for the oldest of the amateur golf championships, the South of Ireland.
Launched in 1895 by Alexander Shaw, the ‘South’ is played for annually at the famed Clare Links course.
On Wednesday morning 150 of the leading amateur golfers in Ireland including some from overseas, set out in search of this famed title.
All will play two qualifying rounds and on this Thursday evening the leading sixty four will remain and from here on will play in matchplay format until the competition concludes with the final on Sunday afternoon.
Lahinch club members who have qualified to compete for this year’s title are Danny Lyne, John Dillon, Aaron McNulty, Stephen Loftus and Jonathan Keane while the field also includes Eoin Magill from East Clare.
Lyne, a member of this year’s Clare minor football team, played a key role in Lahinch’s victory in the Munster Fred Daly cup at the weekend. He plays his club football with Éire Óg, a club that also has strong links with the family of Stephen Loftus.
The championship attracts huge numbers of golf followers to the North Clare seaside resort anxious to see who might be the next Darren Clarke, or Paul McGinley, winners in 1990 and 1991 respectively. Padraig Harrington suffered defeat in two finals.
Could there be a home club winner to follow in the footsteps of the great John Burke, winner of the crown on no less than eleven occasions, four in a row 1928, ‘29,’30 and ‘31 followed by six in a row, 1941, ‘42, ‘43, ‘44, ‘45 and ‘46.
Another Lahinch man Paddy Leyden won the title in 1953, ‘55, ‘56 and 57.
Kilrush native Greg Young suffered the disappointment of defeat in five finals while Ennis man Noel Pyne holds the record of competing in the championship on fifty consecutive occasions.
