On the 39th hole of his day at West Lancashire Golf Club, Ronan Mullarney was forced to watch on as Estonian amateur Richard Teder holed out for eagle to claim the fifth and final qualification spot for this year’s Open Championship at Royal Portrush.
Mullarney’s disappointment echoed those of the other 17 Irish contestants who teed it up across the four venues, but his Open Championship dream may not be over just yet as he’ll be high on the reserve list and will be hoping for several withdrawals between now and the opening round on Thursday July 17.
After Australian Lucas Herbert, China’s Sampson Zhang and Englishman George Bloor finished on -8, -7 and -6 respectively, it left Mullarney, Teder, Sam Bairstow and Oliver Lindell – all at -5 – to fight it out in a four-for-two playoff.
Mullarney, who birdied the 36th hole to give himself a fighting chance, holed clutch par saving putts on the first and second playoff holes, but it was Finland’s Lindell who took the first qualification spot after holing a 35-footer to keep himself in it on the first and then a 12-footer for birdie and safe passage on the next.
This left Mullarney, Teder and Bairstow going back to the 10th, where, after taking an aggressive approach off the tee, the Estonian, who lost to Gavin Tiernan on the 18th hole in the Amateur Championship quarter-final last week, slammed the door with an incredible hole-out from 80 yards. An hour before, he’d holed an eight-footer for a crucial double bogey on the 36th hole.
Edmondstown amateur Thomas Abom carded a double bogey on the 36th hole to drop out of the playoff places, while Alex Maguire bogeyed two of his final three holes to miss out on the playoff by a shot. Paul McBride was a couple of shots further adrift.
At Royal Cinque Ports, Graeme McDowell’s dream of competing in his home town came to a close when he finished at -1 and sharing 13th. The 2010 U.S. Open champion had gotten off to a fast start in the morning, but heavy gusts in the afternoon turned it into a war of attrition and sadly, it was a battle he lost.
South African Dean Burmester made light of the conditions however, and his course-record equalling 64 following his opening 70 was enough to see him cruise home in first place, with the English trio of Nathan Kimsey, Curtis Knipes, and amateur Sebastian Cave also making it through, along with Denmark’s John Axelsen.
Niall Kearney was the only Irishman in the field at Burnham and Berrow and he couldn’t maintain his early promise and slumped to a T52 finish as South African Justin Walters took medallist honours and Jakob Olesen of Denmark, and Harry Hall, amateur Frazer Jones and OJ Farrell of England all qualified.
It was at Dundonald Links in Scotland where the majority of the Irish were competing, and John Murphy came closest to qualifying. The Kinsale man finished tied for seventh at -3, missing out on a playoff by a single stroke.
Liam Nolan, Ruaidhri McGee, Keith Shannon, Gavin Tiernan, Michael McGeady, Caolan Rafferty, Dermot McElroy, Rowan Lester, Finlay Eager and Brendan McCarroll also leave Scotland empty handed.
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