The field is set for next month’s Flogas Irish Men’s Amateur Open Championship with a collection of big hitters lining up to pinch the title from defending champion Colm Campbell.
The cut off point was +3.3 with a host of international players teeing it up from across the UK, Australia, Switzerland, Sweden and Canada while some star Irish players are pencilled in having missed the West of Ireland at Easter.
Castle’s Robert Moran, East of Ireland champion Alex Maguire (Laytown&Bettystown) and Galway’s Liam Nolan are all in action at the Island as the Irish Amateur Open returns to the links for the second year in a row.
US Mid-Amateur champion Matthew McClean returns after his Masters excursions as he looks to go one better having been beaten in a playoff here last year.
The Malone man is the highest ranked Irishman in the field and second highest ranked player at 66th in the WAGR.
England’s Arron Edwards-Hill leads the handicap count on a whopping +7.0 with Douglas’ Peter O’Keeffe the leading Irishman at +6.5. The 2021 Irish Amateur Open and Close winner will be bidding for a hat trick of Open titles.
Moran who was third here last year and Mullingar Scratch Cup winner Joshua Hill round off the contingents in the plus six contingent.
Like the West of Ireland Amateur Open Championship, there is a strong Walker Cup flavour with only Mark Power absent from the Irish players on the provisional Great Britain and Ireland panel for September.
Edwards-Hill, seventeen-year-old’s Josh Berry, Harley Smith and Dylan Shaw-Radford and John Gough make up the English Walker Cup quota while sixteen-year-old Connor Graham is the Scottish Walker Cup contender in the field.
Gough is the highest ranked player in the field at 17 in the World Amateur Golf Rankings.
West of Ireland champion James Claridge and Scotland’s Matthew Wilson will be looking for strong performances in Dublin as they bid to force their way into GB&I reckoning.
The men from down under, Adam Brady and Max Ford return from Australia. Brady finished twelfth last year and certainly can’t be ruled out.
Nicola Gerhardsen was beaten by Peter O’Keeffe at the European Club in a gripping playoff two years ago and a strong Swiss tradition continues with seven coming from the Alps including Thomas Lecomte who was T12 last time out.
North and South of Ireland champion Hugh Foley will look to tick another championship off his list with a maiden Irish Amateur win, leaving just the East in his way of completing the set of championships.
Carton House’s Marc Boucher impressed at the West in Rosses Point and he looks primed for another tilt at the Irish AM after a fourth place finish last year.
Roganstown starlet Sean Keeling can’t stop winning and he will be brimming with confidence after his Scottish Boys win last week and he put on a late charge last year with a final round 71 as he shared sixth place last year.
The man to beat will be Campbell who picked up his second Irish title having previously won in 2016. The Warrenpoint man opted out of the West of Ireland but he will be ready to defend his crown next month.
In total, the Island will welcome 55 players from outside of Ireland in May.
English players: George Ash, Joshua Ashton, Max Berrisford, Joshua Berry, Jack Brooks, Sebastian Cave, Adam Charlton, Zachary Chegwidden, James Claridge, Will Coxon, Arron Edwards-Hill, Jackson Garnett, John Gough, Henry Hayward, Jacob Kelso, Matthew Lever, Jack Leversidge, Lucas Martin, Sean McAufield, Jack McPhail, Josh Millington, Sam Potter, Dylan Shaw-Radford, Harley Smith, Mark Stockdale
Scottish players: Andrew Benson, Angus Carrick, Mitchell Cowie, Archie Finnie, Conor Graham, Gergor Graham, Lewis Irvine, Taylor Kerr, Ross Laird, Ruben Lindsay, Cameron Mukherjee, Matthew Wilson
Welsh players: Tomi Bowen, Tom Bastow, Caolan Burford, Tom Matthews, Patrick Mullins, James Nash, Matt Roberts
Australian players: Adam Brady, Max Ford
Swiss players: Jonathan Garbely, Oliver Hausammann, Nicklas Illi, Thomas Lecomte, Maximilian Morgenstern, Marc Steinhauser
Swedish players: Gustav Liljeberg, David Lundgren
Canadian players: Alex Zhang
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