Two Irishmen among eight men remaining at Portmarnock
R&A/Twitter photo
Two more rounds of match play are complete at Portmarnock (Ireland) Golf Club for the Amateur Championship and the final eight men are a varied bunch of players. They include one American, one Australian and two Irishmen representing the host country.
The American is Cameron Sisk, the soon-to-be-sophomore at Arizona State who defeated Englishman Billy McKenzie, 4 and 3, and Vincent Norman in 20 holes to find his way into the quarterfinals. Sisk now has an unfortunate date with the Australian, who is David Micheluzzi. So far this week, Micheluzzi has also been known as the highest ranked player in the field. He checks in at No. 7 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking.
The two will face off at the top of the bracket on Friday.
The Irishmen – James Sugrue of Mallow and Ronan Mullarney of Galway – are fortunately on opposite sides of the bracket and face different opponents in the quarterfinals.
On Thursday, Mullarney defeated Sweden’s Ludvig Aberg, 4 and 3, then won a close one against England’s Matty Lamb on the final hole.
“I’ve played in front of good-sized crowds before and it was great to see them supporting me,” Mullarney told the R&A on the topic of the home crowd for his Thursday matches. “It’s brilliant to have two Irish players in the quarterfinals. There are plenty of matches left to be played and I can’t look too far ahead to the prizes that come for the winner at the end of this championship.”
As for Sugrue, his victories came against Swede Christoffer Palsson and Spaniard Sergio Parriego Cornejo.
“It feels really, really good, especially after this morning after 14 holes,” he said of the match against Palsson. “I thought I was going home and there was no way back. To win this morning and do it again this afternoon feels pretty good.”
The Scots weren’t so lucky as the Irishmen in terms of position on the bracket. On Friday morning, Sandy Scott of Nairn and Euan Walker of Kilmarnock will go head to head at Portmarnock.
ABOUT THE British Amateur
This championship, along with the US Amateur Golf
Championship, is considered the most important in
amateur golf.
The first stage of the Championship involves 288
players each of whom plays two rounds of 18 holes,
one to be played on each of the two courses. The 64
lowest scores over the 36 holes and ties for 64th
place will compete in the match play stage of the
Championship. Each match will consist of one round
of 18 holes except the Final which will be over 36
holes.
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