Seniors Tour: America's David Oakley holed a 125-yard nine-iron for an eagle two on the 360-yard 18th to open a two-shot lead after the first round of the Bad Ragaz PGA Seniors Open at Bad Ragaz GC in Switzerland.
Oakley's wonder shot meant he recorded a seven under par 63 which gave him a two-shot advantage over England's John Morgan, Ireland's Liam Higgins and Australia's David Good.
Higgins said he holed nothing longer than a five-foot putt in his round of 65 and even conspired to miss a four-inch tap-in for a birdie on the 286-yard par-five 16th.
Ireland's Joe McDermott leads the race for the concurrent £500 Hardys Wines Super Seniors prize awarded to the leading competitor to have reached the age of 60. He returned a 68 to share 12th place.
Seniors Open: Kemp Richardson captured the Seniors Amateur Championship crown at Royal Portrush yesterday and dashed fellow American Joel Hirsch's hopes of a second successive title.
Irishman Richard McDonnell made up a trio of players who shared fourth place on seven over totals of 221. The County Louth veteran strung together rounds of 72, 75 and 74 and finished alongside Spaniard Luis Javier Trenor and American Jack Vardaman.
Interprovincials: Leinster maintained their stranglehold on the Women's Interprovincial championships, sponsored by AIB Bank, at the island Golf Club yesterday whey won comfortably 7 1/2 - 2 1/2 over Ulster in the final series of the match.
Girls: The British Open Amateur Golf Championship meeting at Brough, East Yorkshire ended yesterday when Shannon's Heather Nolan went down in the semi-finals of the Todd Bowl second flight competition.
Although beaten 2 and 1 by Swede Emelia Svenningsson, she was far from disgraced in what was a cracking match.
Svenningsson went on to win the Todd Bowl by beating Holand Varin Schilperooid on the home green.
Meanwhile, tenacious Clare Queen will this morning attempt to become the first home countries player for eight years to win the Girls British Open Amateur Golf Championship.
The 18-year-old Drumpellier three handicapper booked her place in the 18 hole final against Spaniard Carmen Alonso with victory over Azahara Munoz on the 21st.
In a stamina-sapping match there were continual fluctuations of fortunes and twice in the closing stages Queen seemed to be on her way out but managed to recover from seemingly hopeless positions to reach the final.
Pro-Am: The £14,000 Tullamore pro-am tournament finished in a three-way tie yesterday as Damian Mooney, John Dignam and Damian McGrane shared a six-under-par total of 134 to share the honours and split the first three cheques between them.
Best performance of the trio came from McGrane, who posted a closing 67 after starting the day in joint fourth spot, two shots behind Mooney and one behind Dignam. Overnight leader David Walker, who shot a course record 64 in the first round, slid to a 72 yesterday and had to be content with sixth place.
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