A new era unfolding, or mere confirmation that the ILGU's coaching structures are reaping dividends. Claire Coughlan, who turned 19 years old just a week earlier, kept the biggest surprise to last in a championship of upsets when she beat three-time winner and former Curtis Cup player Eileen Rose Power in an intriguing final of the Lancome Irish Women's Close at Carlow Golf Club on Saturday.
It wasn't just the win, it was the manner of it that was so impressive. The kid from Cork - who'd made the journey with, in her own words, "just two hopes, to qualify and to reach the last 16" - exuded confidence and, even more importantly, brought with her a game that was close to faultless.
In her bag was a new nine-degree lofted Callaway Hawkeye driver, only a few days old and used for the first time in the championship, that became her greatest ally. Time after time, she split the fairways with drives that were up to 20 yards beyond Power. In beating Power by a 4 and 3 margin, Coughlan was three-under-par for the 15 holes and, earlier, she had been two-under in accounting for Belvoir Park's Bronagh Lunney in the semi-final. Power, meanwhile, needed to go to the 21st to eventually beat her great rival Lillian Behan.
Coughlan, the youngest winner of the championship since Philomena Garvey triumphed in 1946 (the first of her 15 titles), gained automatic selection on the six-player Irish team for the European Championship in Versailles in July where she will be joined by Power, Behan, Susie O'Brien, Alison Coffey and Emma Dickson. For the sports management student at Scoil Stiofain Ioafa in Cork, it marks huge progress and a reward for hard work on her game in recent months that included a session in Portugal earlier this year with the national squad.
A two-time loser of the Irish Girls' championship - "What do they say, third time lucky?" she remarked - Coughlan's debut appearance in the senior championship was the stuff of fairytales. Indeed, she never trailed in the final. The Cork player was one-up at the turn and, after the 10th was shared in birdies (it really was golf of the highest quality), Coughlan rolled in a 10 footer for birdie at the 11th to move two-up.
An unaccustomed three-putt from off the green by Power at the 12th enabled Coughlan to go three ahead and, amazingly, she was four-up after the short 13th when her opponent found a bunker off the tee and failed to get up and down. Although Power won the 14th with a 20 foot birdie putt, to reduce the deficit to three, the end was in sight.
It all ended on the 15th green, the furthest point from the clubhouse, and Lillian Behan, the former British amateur champion and Curtis Cup player, shook her head in appreciation at Coughlan's accomplishment. "I remember when I was that young and had no fear. I could get the ball up and down from the top of a tree if I had to," she remarked.
Coughlan had just pitched dead, having pushed her approach shot up the bank amongst trees to an area that had bogey or worse written all over it. Yet, coolness under pressure had been one of Coughlan's main attributes all week and, later, displaying the confidence of youth, she admitted: "I've played really good golf, haven't I?" Indeed she had, and the teenager emerged as a very worthy winner of one of the oldest championships in world golf.
