Kildare pitch and putt players excel in Leinster

What a fantastic couple of weeks in May for the Pitch and Putt clubs of Kildare. Starting with St. Bridget's hosting the Kildare County Board Strokeplay Championship with over 100 Kildare players taking part on a fantastic weekend of pitch and putt.

The Ladies and Gents Junior were out first on the Saturday with a lot of pitch and putt to be played to see who would be county champion.

The Ladies Championship would go to Ryston’s Chrissy Sheedy; second went to St Bridget's lady Mairead O’Toole and third to Ryston’s Mary Donnolly.

Next to be crowned county junior mens champion was Ryston’s Craig Mallinson; McDonagh's Philip Warner was second with and Christy Sweeney from the host club taking third spot.

Moving on to Sunday where two more county titles were up for grabs. The gents inter and senior titles.
Inters were first up with Ollie Lambe from Athgarvan taking the county title ahead of Tommy Craig from Prosperous and Athgarvan's Eein Commiskey in third spot.

Now it was the turn of the Kildare senior Gents and we were not let down with the Ryston duo of Darren Keogh and Sean Harkins who tied after 36 holes.

It took play-off over 9 holes to settle this one. A spectacular 9 holes of pitch and putt ensued with Sean Harkins taking the title and Darren Keogh getting second with Prosperous Justin McKeon in third.
A big thank you to St. Bridget's club for hosting this event.

Leinster scotch foursomes
Kildare players then moved to Collinstown Pitch and Putt Club in Westmeath for the Leinster Scotch Foursomes.
There were 15 teams from Kildare competing for the titles. We were all excited to see how they would do.

In the mixed championship the husband and wife team from St Bridget's Ian and Catherine Dillon would finish second.

In the Gents the Ryston team of Martin Power and Aaron Tobin were leaders in the clubhouse with one team still to come in; in the end they finished second, beaten by a single shot for the title.
What a great showing from Kildare clubs.

Strokeplay
Next it was on to McDonagh for the Leinster Strokekplay qualifying for gents with qualifiers for each of the grades were: Senior, Frank Ryan, Ian Dillon, Sean Harkins, Martin Delaney.

Inter: Daniel Condon, Derek O'Driscoll, John Clarke Jnr, Peter Kearney, Cathal O'Toole;

Junior: Martin Power, Eamon Mahon, Philip Warner and James Dunne;

Ladies: Chrissy Sheedy, Mauread O' Toole and Tara Dillon.

The finals will take place in Trim and Stackallen Pitch and Putt Clubs.

Commenting on the great success of local players, Sean Kearney, Chairman Kildare County Board said “Kildare players were primed and ready to go and as the saying goes they burned it up.

“In the Gents junior we now have a Leinster champion from Ryston, Martin Power and to add to this we now also have the Leinster Senior Ladies champion, also from the Newbridge Ryston club in Chrissy Sheedy.

“What a couple of weeks for Kildare pitch and putt. Now let’s look forward to June and hopefully get some national titles to add to our Leinster titles.”