Lisburn take part in the Bradbury Cup at Balmoral

The Competition for the Bradbury Cup has been held annually since 1972. Each of the four golf clubs, Balmoral, Dunmurry, Lisburn and Malone take turn to host the competition.
Bernard McCourt presenting the Whitewash Trophy to the victorious LGC Captain Peter Cairns after the annual match with NIAGS, with President Andrew Crawford looking on.Bernard McCourt presenting the Whitewash Trophy to the victorious LGC Captain Peter Cairns after the annual match with NIAGS, with President Andrew Crawford looking on.
Bernard McCourt presenting the Whitewash Trophy to the victorious LGC Captain Peter Cairns after the annual match with NIAGS, with President Andrew Crawford looking on.

This year, in their Centenary year, Balmoral Golf Club had that honour last Saturday.

Each team is made up of 25 players and each fourball is composed of one member of each club. The competition is now played with a shotgun start at 9am and all players finish simultaneously. The course at Balmoral was in good condition and with the fairways having recently been tined, placing of the ball on fairways was allowed. The match is scored on the total stableford points from the best 15 cards in each team. The home side is usually favourite to win the competition and this year was no exception with Balmoral on 606 points over Lisburn’s 595 points and Dunmurry and Malone not far behind.

Meanwhile on the same day at Lisburn, Balmoral members were invited to play in Lisburn G.C’s competition whilst their course was in use. A total of 198 competitors took part. Gregory Law (12) was the clear winner with 40 points. After 13 holes, he was sitting on 31 points, then failed to score at the next two holes, but steadied the ship with a birdie at hole 16. The only visitor to make any impact on the course was Brendan Farnan (16) who despite not scoring at two holes was the only person on 39 points to take second place. Third prize went to Tom Scott (21) who was the only person on 38 points. Of the five players on 37 points, two of them had an eagle. David Walsh had an eagle 3 at the hole 14. An eagle at a par 5 is not unusual but an eagle at a par 4 is a very uncommon occurrence. Ian Shellard accomplished this at the 457 yard tenth hole. Leaving himself 186 yards to the flag, he played “the sweetest 6 iron I have ever hit” to give himself 5 points in the competition. An off form Ryan Symington (-1) was still able to go round in 76 (32 gross points) to win the gross prize.

On Sunday, the Club Council had their annual match against the NIAGS. The Lisburn team were again victors winning 3 of the 5 matches and recoding halves in the remaining two.

The mid-week Stableford competition was again held in good weather conditions. Robert Hamilton (10) had 3 birdies in a front nine, faltered at the beginning of the back nine but steadied up to accumulate an unbeatable 40 points. Mark Bailie (8), whose early season form had been poor in the midst of his A-levels is again finding form and has got his handicap back to 7 after scoring 39 points to take second place. Gary Campbell, who has been having an excellent season scored 20 points in the back 9 to take third place beating Ken Burns, Albert Gregg and Billy Friars on the countback. All four finishing on 38 points.

Lisburn Golf Club has enjoyed having excellent green conditions for the summer season. As is usual in September, the greens have been hollow tined on Monday of this week. This is part of the routine maintenance to keep their greens up to standard and will ensure good putting surfaces in the future.

This weekend’s competition is the BTNI Fourball Betterball Cup. The winners will also qualify to represent the club in the 2015 Irish daily mail foursomes. All potential competitors should make sure they have a partner.

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