Ireland’s hopes of Gold Medals at the European Mid-Amateur Team Championships have ended in heartbreaking fashion as both the Men’s and Women’s teams lost out in additional hole playoffs in the semi-finals.
After taking the number-one seed into the matchplay stages, the Men’s team came up against the host nation Spain and faced an uphill task after Colm Campbell and Gerard Dunne lost 4&3 in the first paired match and David Howard and David Reddan lost by a single hole in their tie.
In the afternoon singles matches, Reddan took a commanding lead and secured a 4&3 win, while Dunne, playing in the final match, took a 2&1 win. Playing in the leadout match, Campbell found himself 2DOWN early, but wins on the 13th and 16th got him back to all-square and the match ended up going to extra holes with the overall score at 2-2.
Unfortunately, a birdie on the 20th secured victory for Nicolas Evangelio and Spain, pushing Ireland into the Bronze Medal match against France who were defeated 4-1 by Germany in the other Flight A semi-final.
It was a very similar story in the Women’s semi-final where number-two seeds Ireland faced France, though the paired sessions saw the sides split the points with Aideen Walsh and Clodagh Coughlan winning 2&1 and Shannon Burke and Jessica Ross fell by the same margin.
In the leadout singles match, Walsh went down 4&3 and Ross won 1UP in the anchor match, but Burke came from behind to tie her match with Clemence Cadeac and go to the 19th where the Frenchwoman finally saw her off and set up a Gold Medal match with Germany who are going for a Flight A double.
This leaves Ireland and Italy scrapping it out for the Bronze Medal.
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