Alex Maguire has become the latest Irishman to win on the Clutch Pro Tour after the Meath man converted a one-stroke 36-hole lead and won by three at the Rapsodo Championship at St Mellion in Cornwall.
Back-to-back three-under 69s left him on six-under going into the final round on the tight, heavily tree-lined Nicklaus Championship Course, and any thoughts that victory would come easy were quickly dispelled when he missed shortish putts and bogeyed two of the opening four holes to surrender the lead and fall two behind.
But a birdie at the seventh helped settle him, and though he dropped another shot on eight, a trio of birdies at the start of the back nine saw him take control once again and he managed to play the tough closing five in level-par, chipping in at the last for birdie and a three-stroke win.
“There was a lot of relief there,” he admitted afterwards. “Pure relief. When you’re leading on the last day of a tournament, you don’t want to be missing short putts early because you know you’ll have more of them coming up, but I played alright, got myself back into it at the start of the back nine, and then just held on for dear life, to be honest.
“It might’ve looked comfortable on paper, but that’s way different to how it actually was because, even with a two-shot lead on the final hole, there’s out-of-bounds left and right off the tee, water short and left of the green, and the pin was tucked back left.
“I’d have needed a 10-shot lead to be really comfortable, as I was playing with the guy in second and if he birdied it and I bogeyed it, we were going to a playoff.”
As it happened, it was the other way around, as a good drive and a approach just over the back edge left him a delicate chip down the hill and he closed out in style.
“I wasn’t really trying to hole it. I was just trying to get it down inside a foot or so for par, but it dropped in. That certainly made it look a bit easier on paper,” he laughed. “I gave it a big fist pump, then my mind sort of went blank for a while before I went to my bag and texted my girlfriend and my dad because I knew they were at home glued to the live scoring.
“Then, the emotions came through. You put everything into this game, and you’re going out and trying to win every week – you’re not just going out trying to progress – and I’ve had so many close calls that it all just comes flooding out because you know that agony is gone for now at least.
“Yeah, it was pretty cool.”
Maguire’s victory comes hot on the heels of John Murphy’s less than two weeks ago, and Paul McBride’s in the second event of the campaign, meaning that Irish golfers have now won three of the five Clutch Tour events in 2026.
“Paul’s win sort of kicked it all off for us,” Maguire said. “Then Murph’s win last week was so inspirational because of how hard the game’s been for him over the last few years, so to see him come back, be playing well, and then get the win… I took a lot of confidence from that because he showed that you can lose your confidence and struggle for a while but that you can make it back and win.
“Those lads really deserve it, and I’d say there’s a few other Irish lads ready to get over the line now that they’ve seen us doing it.”
Maguire finished tied for third when McBride won, and his own victory this week has vaulted him up to second on the Order of Merit where the top three at the end of the campaign earn promotion to the HotelPlanner Tour for next year.
But rather than focus on his ranking, with one victory in the bag he’s determined to keep the foot down and chase two more wins which would see him automatically promoted.
“I might be second for now, but there’s a long season ahead of us,” he said. “The best thing you can do is keep chasing wins, and that gets you the most amount of points anyway, so I think my goal will be try to get two more wins and get that automatic promotion because you could easily get sucked into watching where your ranking is and lose focus.
“I’d much rather play offence than defence.”
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It was a good week for several other Irishmen as well. Tyler Hogarty shot a closing 68 to move into a share of third place, while McBride secured another top-10 finish, and Marc Boucher finished tied for 17th.
It was a day to forget for Robert Brazill who slipped down the leaderboard and finished tied for 35th, with Noel Murray sharing 45th.
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