Mark McGowan at Galgorm Castle
Gary Murphy admitted that he’s playing under a certain degree of pressure with Legends Tour Order of Merit points a big requirement after only having limited starts during the 2025 campaign thus far, but he’s off to a solid start in the Black Desert NI Legends at Galgorm Castle.
The K Club Head Professional carded a two-under round of 70 on a day where all four seasons made an appearance at the Northern Irish resort, and he’s reasonably pleased with his opening effort.
“I’m normally good for shooting one- or two-over the first day, so I’m pleased to have a decent start,” he joked. “I only had one bogey out there which I’m delighted with because I’ve been making too many mistakes.”
A steady start saw him par the first five holes before opening his birdie account on the sixth, but a bogey on eight dropped him back to level-par. With two par-5s either side of the turn, they were holes that had to be taken advantage of, and he did exactly that, getting nicely up and down from a tight angle on 10 to complete back-to-back birdies.
A few more birdie chances came and went, and he faced into the tricky closing stretch at -2 and managed to play the final five in level-par and maintain pace, rescuing an excellent par at the last having found himself plugged in the face of a bunker with 90 yards in.
“I played OK,” he said. “I holed three nice par putts towards the end – I didn’t really hole a lot of the birdie putts, but when you hole three nice par putts, they cancel out the missed birdies.
“I was steady on the first few holes, but you need to get off to hot start, and I didn’t. I had decent chances, just didn’t make them, but overall, it’s a decent score.”
While -2 has him inside the top 20 in a share of 19th, he finds himself six shots off the lead at the end of the day after Australian Scott Hend emerged from a then five-strong group at -7 to edge into the solo lead at -8.
“It’s kind of crazy scoring,” Murphy said. “The tees might be up a little bit on some holes, but there was still a testing breeze out there. That’s very impressive, because it was top off, top on, rain jacket on, rain jacket off. But tomorrow, I think it’s giving it to be pretty bad, so if I can have a decent round tomorrow then I can move up the board a bit further and see if I can produce some magic on Sunday.”
The most important thing, however, is that he’s got 36 holes left to play and he’s in with a chance of securing the top-five finish he requires to play his way into next week’s European Legends Cup in Spain.
“Yeah, I haven’t shot myself out of it,” he explained. “I have a lot of work to do though. There’s a lot of good players here, as you know, and judging by the scoring it’s going to be well into double figures.
“I guess I’ll just have to get the finger out,” he added with a grin.
Damian Mooney is also chasing a top-five finish to gain entry to the European Legends Cup, and the Head Pro at Lough Erne looked on course to be among the leaders on day one when he got to five-under though 14, but four dropped shots over the closing four left him bitterly disappointed though, at -1, he’s tied for 29th and still in with a chance of climbing back onto the first page of the leaderboard.
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