ENNISCRONE GC expect to have completed a new, £350,000 clubhouse extension in time for the Ulster Bank sponsored West of Ireland Amateur Championship. The event, which has been switched from Co Sligo because of problems with the Rosses Point greens, fills its customary Easter slot on March 28th to April 1st.
"This is a huge occasion for us," said Enniscrone captain, Paddy Murphy, at a reception in Dublin yesterday when details of the championship were announced. "We are adding 4,000 square feet to our clubhouse accommodation and the West has given us an ideal target date."
He went on: "The amount of interest generated by the championship will be very important to the club. Things have been fairly quiet since we staged the Irish Close in 1993 and we would like to think that the West will put us back on the map, certainly in terms of green fee revenue.
Apart from the clubhouse, all but recent visitors there will note a significant change to the par four seventh. Architect Pat Ruddy was brought in 15 months ago to re design the hole. His main changes were to relocate the tee, back left, so increasing the length by about 30 yards and in giving the hole a dog leg configuration, he created gentle swales in the landing area for drives.
A particularly strong entry, with 200 players seeking 123 places, has led to an unusually low handicap cut off of 2.4 exact. Garth McGimpsey will be defending the title and the line up also includes Jody Fanagan, Kenneth Kearney and local player Derek Basquill. Eddie Power, who captured the Close there four years ago, will also be competing.
Meanwhile, European Tour activities this week will centre on the Aroeira course south of Lisbon where the £350,000 Portuguese Open starts on Thursday. After the late withdrawal of both Philip Walton and Raymond Burns, there are seven Irish competitors in action Padraig Harrington, Ronan Rafferty, Darren Clarke, Paul McGinley, David Higgins, Eamonn Darcy and Des Smyth.
Those who might be surprised by the fact that Harrington is now competing in his eighth successive event, should note that he played 11 out of 12 at the same stage last season. His only break in that sequence was for the Desert Classic in Dubai, where he failed to get into the field.
Despite relatively modest pnzemoney, the Portuguese event has attracted quite a strong field including Jose Maria Olazabal who is ready to test his physical well being once more, having made a splendid come back in Dubai. It also marks the return to European competition of McGinley and Clarke who played in the Malaysian Open in Kuala Lumpur last weekend.
In the US, a straight driver of the ball with a delightfully rhythmic swing.a captured the Doral Ryder Open on an even more fearsome Blue Monster layout. Steve Elkington took top prize of $324,000 with a 13 under par aggregate of 275 - two strokes clear of Nick Price - and Larry Nelson in second place.
Pete Dye, the enfant terrible of American golf course architects, claims that the only way to throw a scare into accomplished tournament professionals is with wind and water. But events at Doral would suggest that good old fashioned bunkers can still cause plenty of problems, when there's enough of them.
In revising the course, Raymond Floyd clearly went for quantity by adding more than 30 acres of sand. And the competitors hated the changes because they worked. Even the straight hitting Elkington failed to escape them at the 13th and 14th, dropping a stroke in each case.
It was his seventh American win and his first since the USPGA Championship of 1995. And remarkably, he achieved it with a new set of clubs, including a putter. It seems that his regular set were stolen last month, when he played in the Thailand Open, won by Tiger Woods.
Nelson's performance was particularly interesting insofar as he will qualify for the Seniors Tour on September 10th, his 50th birthday. Though his last tournament victory was in the 1991 Dunlop Phoenix in Japan, his pulling stroke looked so good at Doral, as to suggest an extremely bright future among the seniors.
