South of Ireland Championship: Jim Carvill is getting to retrace an awful lot of footsteps since returning to the cut and thrust of amateur golf, and the Old Course at Lahinch - where yesterday he negotiated a trouble-free route into the last 16 of the South of Ireland Championship, sponsored by McNamara Builders - holds quite a few snapshots in the old memory bank.
As if he needs reminding of how things once were, Carvill, now 38, doesn't need to look too far. In one corner of the landing on the first floor of the clubhouse here, there's a colour photograph that features Darren Clarke and Carvill wearing one of those diamond-patterned sweaters that were considered trendy when the picture was taken in 1990. On that occasion, the Warrenpoint golfer lost in the final of the South to a player who has gone on to become one of the mainstays of the European Tour.
Carvill, too, sought to eke out a living as a professional. Not long after that South of Ireland defeat to Clarke, Carvill also turned professional. In his case, though, most of the time was spent on the mini-tours. Although he had 10 visits to the European Tour qualifying school, he never managed to claim a full card and most of the time was spent playing on the MasterCard Tour and the Europro Tour in Britain and on the Challenge Tour.
He played his last professional tournament in South Africa in 2001 and, finally accepting the dream of professional stardom that had lasted for a decade was over, Carvill started working in the gaming and leisure industry with the Dominic Quinn Group and the process of retaining his amateur status was instigated. On April 1st this year, he became an amateur again and there are times when he has had to pinch himself at how quickly and seamlessly he has returned to the competitive demands of the amateur game. "I'd been out of competition for two or three years, so it wasn't easy," he remarked.
Already this season, however, he has won the East of Ireland - the only domestic strokeplay championship - and, with it, earned a call-up to the Irish team for the European Championships in Hillside in England last month. It's not an experience that Carvill recalls fondly. Ireland failed to make the top flight and to make matters worse his wallet, with a significant amount of cash, was stolen from the locker rooms on the final day of the championship.
The day job meant he effectively had to make a choice between playing in the North of Ireland earlier this month or here at the South of Ireland. Carvill opted to play the South, and his progression into the fifth round has made that decision look increasingly a wise one. Yesterday, he defeated Martin Poucher, of the Castle, in the third round and then accounted for Castlecomer's Michael Buggy in the afternoon by a 5 and 4 margin.
In overcoming Buggy, Carvill played some lovely golf that featured a sequence of five successive threes from the seventh hole, a run of birdie-par-birdie-birdie-par that effectively ensured his passage into the last 16. He hit a six-iron approach to two feet on the seventh for birdie; hit a sand wedge to three feet for another birdie on the ninth, and hit a four-iron approach dead for another birdie on the 10th. He finished the match in style, hitting a nine-iron approach on the 14th to 12 inches.
Rory Leonard won the 18th hole to force extra holes in his fourth round match with last year's West of Ireland champion Paul McDonald and then secured victory at the first tie hole to set up a meeting with Carvill.
Darren Crowe, one of the favourites for the title, was also in impressive form in defeating Robert Forsythe to ensure a fifth round meeting this morning with The Island's David Rawluk, who accounted for Ballyliffin's Brendan McCarroll by one hole.
Having battled to a one hole win over Mark Ryan in the morning third round, Crowe felt it necessary to carry out some work on the range before his match with Forsythe. "I was hitting too many shots right, I was a bit out of rhythm," he said. Whatever remedial action was carried out worked as he had five birdies on the way to an emphatic 5 and 4 win to set up the match with Rawluk.
On a day that didn't have the same seismic shocks of Sunday, when a large number of seeded players bowed out, the biggest upset yesterday came when the defending champion Cian McNamara was defeated 2 and 1 by Athenry's Michael Mulryan.
