Conor Purcell effectively punched his own golden ticket to the big time with his win in the Black Desert NI Open at Galgorm Castle, jumping to a career-best 366th in the updated official world rankings and, perhaps more significantly, to fourth on the Challenge Tour order of merit.
The 27-year-old Dubliner’s upward move to fourth on that Race to Mallorca standings with only 13 tournaments – including that season-ending Rolex Grand Final in Mallorca – remaining means he is all but assure of his full tour card on the DP World Tour next season.
Titles on the Challenge Tour are hard-won, with Michael Hoey’s win in the co-sanctioned Madeira Island Open back in 2011 the last success by an Irish player.
Rather fittingly, and a measure of how far he has come, Tom McKibbin – who hosted but didn’t play in the NI Open – was on hand to present Purcell with the trophy. McKibbin is the last Irish player to graduate off the Challenge Tour, in 2022, and his onward momentum (winning last year’s Porsche European Open and on course to secure a PGA Tour card off this season’s work) can serve as inspiration to Purcell’s own journey.
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Rightly, Purcell – who won €47,387 – celebrated his breakthrough professional win with family and friends and gets back down to business straight away, but at least able to sleep in his own bed for the commute from Malahide to Straffan for the Irish Challenge at The K Club’s Palmer South course.
Purcell will head a strong Irish contingent that will also feature Alex Maguire, Conor O’Rourke, Mark Power, John Murphy, Robert Moran, Ronan Mullarney, Liam Grehan, Simon Thornton, Daniel Mulligan, Gary Hurley, amateur invite Liam Nolan, Jonathan Caldwell and Dermot McElroy.
Keeling aims to follow in Tiger Woods’s footsteps
Teenager Seán Keeling will aim to follow in some famous footsteps when he competes in the 48th Junior US PGA Championship for the Jack Nicklaus Trophy at Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Maryland, this week.
Among past participants in the boys’ championship are Major champions Tiger Woods, Scottie Scheffler, Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth while PGA Tour player Akshay Bhatia completed back-to-back wins in 2018 and 2019.
Keeling, who played on last year’s record-breaking win for Europe over the USA in Rome and also reached the matchplay stage of the recent US Junior Amateur championship, is included in the 156-player field which will see the low 60 scorers and ties advance after 36-holes strokeplay followed by a 54-hole cut when the low 30 scorers advance to the final round.
Keeling is coached by Geoff Loughrey at Roganstown Golf Club and will start his US golf scholarship at Texas Tech in September.
Word of Mouth
“I just wrote ‘dig deep; this is what you practised for, and you have worked for all of this’” – American Patrick Adler on the self-help words he pencilled into his yardage book ahead of the Volkswagen South of Ireland amateur championship at Lahinch where he beat Brian Doran of Millicent in the final.
By the Numbers
17-2 & 22-1
Rory McIlroy is priced at 17-2 and Shane Lowry rated a 22-1 shot in the men’s Olympic Games tournament which starts at Paris National on Thursday. Scottie Scheffler is the hot 7-2 market leader.
On this day ... July 30th, 1995
The word was that American Scott Hoch – who’d competed at the previous week’s Open Championship at St Andrews, won by John Daly – only added the Dutch Open on to his playing schedule so that his wife could visit Amsterdam as part of their European trip.
Whatever the fact or fiction of Hoch’s decision to turn up in the Netherlands, it proved to be a rewarding one as Hoch shot rounds of 65-70-69-65 for a total of 15-under-par 269 which gave him a two strokes winning margin over Scotland’s Sam Torrance and Sweden’s Michael Jonzon.
Darren Clarke and Philip Walton had entered the weekend in contention but fell away with poor third rounds: Clarke would ultimately finish tied-seventh, Walton in tied-11th.
Hoch actually trailed Q-school graduate Jonzon down the homeward run only for the Swede to suffer bogeys at the 15th and 16th holes. The Dutch success proved to be Hoch’s only career win on the European circuit.
X-Twitter Twaddle
Made it to Paris & Bennett loved the Louvre – world number one Scottie Scheffler didn’t waste time in introducing his months old son to some artistic culture ahead of competing in the Olympics.
Shot 72 to finish tied 5th. Golf is such a strange game, hit it terribly (Saturday) and then flushed it (Sunday). Started triple, double but came back strong with 7 birdies – a rueful Pádraig Harrington on his down and up final round at the Senior Open, won by South Korea’s KJ Choi.
What a special week in the UK! Thank you @JCBGolfCC and the fans for making it possible and I can’t wait to come back and defend next year – Paris-bound Jon Rahm finally falling in love with LIV after securing his first win in the LIV-UK tournament.
Know the Rules
Q
In strokeplay, seeing that the first hole is clear to play, a player tees off two minutes before their official start time. What is the ruling?
A
The player is in breach of Rule 5.3a and is subject to two penalty strokes. Rule 5.3a states that the player must start at (and not before) their starting time: this means that the player must be ready to play at the starting time and starting point set by the committee; a starting time set by the committee is treated as an exact time (for example, 9am means 9.00:00am, not any time until 9:01am).
In the Bag
Jhonattan Vegas – 3M Open (on the PGA Tour)
Driver – Titleist TSi3 (9 degrees)
3-wood – TaylorMade M6 Rocket (14 degrees)
Irons – Titleist T200 (3), Mizuno MP4 (4-PW)
Wedges – Titleist Vokey Design SM10 (50 and 54 degrees), TaylorMade MG Hi-Toe (60 degrees)
Putter – L.A.B. Golf Link. 1
Ball – Titleist ProV1x
