18-year-old Greystones sensation Dylan Holmes may have entered the week as a 150/1 outsider, but he leaves County Sligo with the West of Ireland Championship trophy and a place in the record books alongside the likes of Rory McIlroy, Shane Lowry and Pádraig Harrington.
Making not only his West of Ireland debut, but his maiden appearance in any Men’s Championship, the teenager played front-foot golf from the off in his final match against Warrenpoint’s Colm Campbell and won the first hole with a fantastic up-and-down for par, and doubled his advantage on the par-3 fourth thanks to a fantastic two-putt from around 90 feet.
Both men birdied the fifth, but an unfortunate break for Campbell on the sixth was ruthlessly punished by Holmes who went 3UP. But Campbell isn’t a four time Irish Major Championship winner for nothing, and pulled one back on seven and looked set to reduce it to the minimum on eight only for Holmes to rescue a par with a fabulous bunker shot.
The ninth would prove crucial, as the Warrenpoint man with the honour on the tee came up fractionally short and slipped back into the bunker, and Holmes, opting for a 4-iron to keep it under the wind, found the putting surface about 25-feet from the flag. Campbell’s splash was superb, sticking it to ‘gimme’ range, but Holmes had other ideas and made it arbitrary by holing his lengthy putt.
Feeling the pressure that the young man was exerting, Campbell made an uncharacteristic mistake on 10 to fall four behind, but he made amends on 11 by flicking a wedge to two feet. Holmes, coming in from a difficult angle, left himself another 25-footer, but just like on nine, he began walking when the ball still had a foot to travel and down it went.
It was a bitter blow for Campbell, who’d played well but still found himself four back, but the weather was about to take a turn for the worse as the stiff breeze that had accompanied them for the best part of a dozen holes was about to worsen and have driving rain thrown into the mix.
Campbell won 12 with a birdie, but Holmes struck right back on 13, and then they turned towards the closing stretch that would play into the teeth of a gale.
From being a golf match, it became a war of attrition, and despite losing 14 and 16, Holmes took a 2UP lead to the notoriously difficult 17th, knowing that, in all likelihood, a bogey would be enough to see him over the line.
And so it proved…. Despite excellent drives and well-hit 3-woods and long irons, neither man could reach the green in two and when Campbell’s par putt from just off the left edge rolled past, Holmes had two putts from 15 feet for West of Ireland Championship glory and Campbell graciously conceded when his first attempt ran out of gas a foot short. A 2&1 victory for the Greystones prodigy.
“I played brilliant golf up until the weather started to do what it did,” he said. “I played some of the best golf I’ve ever played, and then, it’s just trying to hold it from there.”
“I think it’s one of the hardest stretches of golf I’ve played without the wind and rain, and then put those two things in, and it becomes…. it’s not a nice few holes to be playing 4UP with five to play.”
Holmes becomes the youngest winner of the West of Ireland since 16-year-old Rory McIlroy back in 2006 – the second of his back-to-back West of Ireland wins – and he admits that it was more nerve racking watching McIlroy at Augusta National last week than it had been down the stretch on the Harry Colt Championship Links at County Sligo.
“Yeah, watching him in the Masters was Terrifying, I guess. He’s my favorite golfer. So, yeah, I guess that’s kind of cool,” Holmes said when asked what it meant to follow in McIlroy’s footsteps.
“Watching Rory [was more stressful] – at least you have some sort of control over the situation when you’re doing it yourself.”
Campbell, though naturally disappointed at a runner-up finish in what was his best West of Ireland Championship to date, was gracious in defeat.
“Yeah, look, I’m disappointed,” he said. “Anytime you get to the final, you obviously want to win it and it just wasn’t meant to be today.
“But I have to say, you know, Dylan played brilliant golf from the start – he was very good, so I have to give him credit, he played really good golf and he deserved to win.”
It was an emotionally charged day for Holmes entire family, with father Karl – a golf professional at Greystones Golf Centre – forced to hand over caddie duties to Dylan’s cousin Jamie Anderson after reaggravating a knee injury in a slip on the third hole on Monday. Jamie proved a more than adequate deputy, however, and Holmes paid tribute to both his father and cousin for the role they’d played.
“Yeah, Jamie kept me calm all day. He’s my best mate, he’s a great golfer himself and we play golf together every day.
“My dad was a great caddie too before he hurt himself, but he still carried on through the 36 holes – 37 actually – yesterday. And today’s his 51st birthday, but I haven’t gotten him anything.”
Winning the West of Ireland Championship will have to do!
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