Mark McGowan at Killeen Castle
Mark Power cut a slightly frustrated figure as he walked off the 18th green at Killeen Castle, on his way to the scoring hut to sign for a level-par 72 that he felt could easily have been a couple of strokes lower.
The Kilkenny man’s closing bogey left him four shots off the early Irish Challenge lead and he knows he’s still well in contention with what he hopes are 54 holes remaining, but it’s a golf course he knows well and one he thinks suits his game to a tee.
“Definitely frustrated,” he emphatically said. “I’ve played this course a decent bit this year. Once I knew this was the venue, I kind of made it my business to try and get out on the course, get to know it, and I really like it.
“I feel like it really suits my game off the tee. Your visuals are quite wide, but you can’t hit in those fairway bunkers and it’s really frustrating because I played really good for the first eight or nine holes. I was two-under and felt like it could have been four easily as I hit every green, gave myself plenty of chances and then I just hit a few fairway bunkers on the back nine and they are really deep so I didn’t really have much of a shot out of them.
“I know you shouldn’t be in them, but it was frustrating because they weren’t bad shots really and just ended up there. I managed to get back to one-under with a nice birdie on 16, then ended up up the face in another one on the last.”
Power played his way into last year’s Irish Open at Royal County Down by finishing as leading Irishman at the Irish Challenge on the K Club’s Palmer South Course, and he’d dearly love to get back there again to tackle the Palmer North in this year’s Irish Open.
“I came in here with pretty high expectations without without putting too much pressure on myself,” he admitted, “because to be honest, the last few months I feel like my game’s been there, but the scores really haven’t been.
“Obviously the main goal this week is to try and get the low Irish player because I obviously love the K Club as well, so I’m trying and get that golden ticket. There’s good competition between the Irish lads to get that spot, and I want to get some points on the board and try to give myself a good category for next year.
“So, there’s plenty of things going on, but you can’t get too caught up in the points and all of that. I know the course suits me, I know my swing’s in a good place, so I feel like I’m bang in there.”
Power faces stiff competition with HotelPlanner Tour regulars Liam Nolan and Dermot McElroy in red figures, along with Alex Maguire and Jack Madden who share the leading Irish honours on -4 after day one.
But fresh off a Walker Cup appearance at St Andrews in 2023, Power made his professional debut in the 2023 Irish Open at the K Club, made the cut, and played with the eventual winner on the final day.
“Yeah, it was a great week,” he recalled. “I played with my college teammate Alex Fitzpatrick in the first few rounds, then played with Vincent Norrman – the winner – in the final round, so I’ve got a lot of good memories from there.”
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