Brilliant Burke claims Leinster prize

Shannon Burke got her 2025 season underway in style as the Ballinrobe golfer claimed the Leinster Over 18 Women’s Championship with a commanding three-shot victory.

With the Duggan Cup also up for grabs, 86 competitors teed it up in beautiful conditions on the coastal parkland of Blainroe Golf Club.

Burke arrived hoping to carry the momentum from her strong team performances at the end of last season into 2025 and it looked as though she would do that early on, a birdie on the par-five second helping to set the 29-year-old on her way.

Another birdie would follow on six before a double on eight threatened to throw Burke off course, however, she steadied the ship with a par on nine before carding three more birdies across a bogey-free back nine. A final score of 73 secured the Mayo native a -2 total and a three-shot win over her Douglas teammate Karen O’Neill.

“Really great day out there, super weather, real gem of a golf course so really nice day out there”, said Burke.

“I doubled eight from kind of nowhere and then picked up three birdies on the way in, decent back nine.”

Much of Burke’s recent success has come from her massive contribution to the AIG Senior Cup winning Douglas team and as part of the Bronze Medal winning European Mid-Amateur Irish team with those performances helping pave the way to solo success.

“I think it is never easy to win, whether it’s 18 holes or 54 or 72, whatever it is, so it is nice to get the win early on and build a bit of momentum going forward”, said Burke.

“Going to go for Lahinch next week and then we have Woodbrook the week after I think so that sets us up rightly going into the championship season.”

Mullingar’s Siobhan O’Donnell Murphy claimed the Duggan Cup carding a gross round of 93 to secure a two-shot victory over Sinead Curristan (Corrstown) who took second place in a countback.

“I’m absolutely delighted, I can’t believe it”, said O’Donnell Murphy.

“I didn’t actually watch the leaderboard at all and I had three doubles coming in and one of my friends said to me, well done and I said, no, no I didn’t do well because I had three doubles but I was just so lucky, they were actually good doubles, they could have been triples so I was happy enough. Kind of regrouped everytime.”

As chair of the Leinster Regional Committee in 2024, O’Donnell Murphy was handing out the prizes at this event last year and was delighted to be on the receiving end this time around.

“We were in Millicent giving them out last year and then this is the first year I’ve been able to play this in about seven years because I have been involved with Golf Ireland and the ILGU so we just came down today because we wanted to play golf, and I cannot believe I won it.”

View the final results here