William back to winning ways

The conditions in the previous week accelerated the welcome growth required to assist the greens to run fast and true.

A young man who has been in the golfing wilderness of late is William Herdman. Single figure handicapper William put the course to the sword on Saturday when he returned the best overall score of the day for victory with a net score of 64.

William started strongly with a par on the first. But he had two bogeys in succession before a run of four pars from the fourth. He had another bogey on the eighth before parring the ninth to get round the front nine in a nett 33, two under his handicap.

William managed three birdies on the back nine and this helped get him round in a nett 31 or one under gross. An excellent result earning him a two shot cut in his handicap.

Deaglan O’Hagan, despite a few errant tee shots, returned one of his best rounds of the season. Deaglan has currently got a handicap of five and when this is combined with his very competitive nature, he will generally be in or around the winner’s enclosure.

This was one of Deaglan’s days, winning the gross with a gross 73 strokes. Deaglan started with a bogey but things got better quickly. His round had fourteen pars and one birdie and he managed to be one over gross for each nine.

Section one, 0-13 handicap, was very closely fought with the first, second and third all returning scores of nett 69.

When the countback was completed Richard Munster was the winner from Rodger Erwin with Stephen Hylands in third spot. To win the prize Richard had to have a better back nine than all the others and he managed this with a level par gross back nine thanks to two nice birdies on the twelfth and fifteenth holes.

Section two, 14-18 handicap, is usually closely fought. This time there was a runaway winner by two shots in the shape of Dominic Downey. Dominic put his great victory down to two putts. A 60 footer on the 16th and a 25 footer on the 18th helped him on his way to a nett 66. Dominic was followed in by Stuart Cameron who beat Edward Moulds on countback after both players returned scores of 68.

Section three, 19-22 handicap, was won by Marc Lawson with a score of 68 from Ivan Forsythe on 69 followed by Martin Cassidy on 71. Mark had the best nett score on the front nine of the day managing to get around in a nett 29. His back nine was not as good but the potential is there and a significant handicap cut will be on the horizon.

Section four, 23-28 handicap, had an outright winner with Graham Steele on his nett 70. Graham was followed in by Herbie Boomer on 71 from Terry Coates on 73.

Graham is another player who has been playing very well recently and this round was no exception. He was generally bogeying holes but had one or two bad holes that did not represent how he was playing at all.