This article is from page 49 of the 2005-09-20 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 49 JPG
OPPORTUNITY of creating history knocked for the Irish ladies golfers in Dundalk last week as they at- tempted to win a hat trick of Home International titles. However, for the team that included Tricia Mangan and Heather Nolan it wasn’t to be as the Irish team went from double cham- pions to wooden spoonists within the space of three days.
Victories at Cruden Bay and Royal Portcawl may in hindsight have had a degree of luck attached on the final day each year, but with such an expe- rienced team, few would have envis- aged that their performance this time out would have been so much below par.
For Irish Champion Tricia Mangan, it was a mixed week – three comfort- able foursomes victories when playing with Martina Gillen was outstanding work, but her only return from singles play was a halved match with Scot- land’s Jenna Wilson on the opening day.
Indeed, Tricia 1/2 point was the only return from the singles on day one — Ireland lost the remaining five singles matches.
The rot had set in at this stage and Ireland went down to Wales on day two. The day started on a bright note when Tricia Mangan and Martina Gil- len scored decisive foursomes win.
It was downhill from there on as the team went down by 5 1/2 to 3 1/2.
Tricia was beaten by Sarah Jones in the singles — a girl she had decisively beaten in the British Championship ley: (e qn rome e lon
In the final game against England, Tricia maintained her 100 per cent record in foursomes play when her partnership with Martin Gillen scored a fine win over Felicity Johnson and Emma Duggleby. However, Johnson got some measure of revenge in the singles, beating the Ennis golfer by 5 and 3.
Munster Champion Heather Nolan teamed up with a totally out of sorts Claire Coughlan in two matches, los- ing on the 18th on the opening day to the Welsh pair of Sahra Hessan and Breanne Loucks. She had no re- turn from her three matches while Mangan, the European number nine, scored 3 1/2 points out of 6.