Invasion of the giantkillers

In these parts, they've been known to make a dollar or two from the presence of leprechauns; now they can add giant-killers to the lore. Yesterday, in the Irish Amateur Close Championship, sponsored by Bank of Ireland, a goodly number of competitors, who would have entertained serious ambitions of taking home the silverware, were forced to leave empty-handed as the first day of matchplay over the Killeen course took a heavy toll.

The casualty list included Gary Cullen, the Irish strokeplay champion, and David Jones, winner of the Welsh equivalent, the St David's Gold Cross, who both exited before lunchtime, while another current Irish international and Walker Cup panellist, Eamonn Brady, departed the scene early in the afternoon when losing to The Island's Eoin O'Sullivan out in the country.

In matchplay, its unpredictability is probably its greatest charm; that a couple of those who inflicted giant-killing acts happened to be locals merely added to it all. Indeed, Kevin Leacy, who only got into the championship as 19th reserve and, then, was one of four survivors on the cut mark after the strokeplay qualifying, was in far less need of such houdini-like measures yesterday as he won both of his matches to reach the last 16.

Leacy, in fact, caused arguably the biggest surprise when he beat Jones by two holes in the first round and, then, showed no mercy to Rathsallagh's Gavin Lunny in the afternoon, terminating the match on the 15th green. On a course which is playing long and tough, local knowledge ain't a bad thing to possess and, apart from Leacy (who must meet three-time champion Eddie Power in this morning's third round in an effort to continue his exploits), there were also heroics from Paul Murphy, a former international, who won the last two holes of his first round match to beat Cullen.

And there was more than a hint of another upset from the Killarney engineer in the second round when Murphy staged a fightback against Leinster interprovincial Stephen Browne. Coming from three down shortly after the turn, Murphy levelled matters on the 17th, with a winning par, and had a chance to win on the 18th after playing a superb eight-iron approach from a bunker to 10 feet. However, he missed the birdie putt and a poor drive at the first tie hole put him into trouble from which he failed to recover and Browne survived.

It wasn't all doom and gloom as far as the so-called big guns were concerned, which is just as well for the Irish selectors charged with selecting a six-man team at the conclusion of this event for the European Championships in Italy. Paddy Gribben, the European amateur champion, Ken Kearney, Garth McGimpsey and Power were all impressive in forging out victories, and Colm Moriarty continued his good recent form to stay in contention. Danny Coyle, back from his college studies in the United States, also played steadily to keep alive his hopes.

Kearney dug deep into his reserves to salvage a second round win against Connemara's David Mortimer. After three-putting the 16th to go one down, the blade came to his rescue on the finishing holes. He sank a 15 footer for a winning par on the 17th and then holed a 20 footer for birdie on the last to claim victory.

But arguably the best golf of all was actually played by ex-Irish youths' international Ciaran McMonagle who only needed a total of 25 holes to win his two matches.

McMonagle was considered something of a dark horse heading into the championship and, after qualifying comfortably, he showed no mercy to his opponents: the Donegal man was an 8 and 6 winner over Michael Collins in the first round, and was an emphatic 6 and 5 winner over Nigel Howley in the afternoon. His reward? A third round encounter with veteran Adrian Morrow who showed he had lost none of his edge with a win at the second tie hole over Mallow's David Finn in their second round battle.

Power admitted to playing "steady" golf in accounting for recently-crowned Leinster youths' champion Michael McGeady by 5 and 4 to advance to the third round, while McGimpsey holed out with two bunker shots for birdies in his two matches yesterday. In the first round, he was a 4 and 3 winner over Michael McGinley and, then, he followed up with a 3 and 2 win over Cormac Finn. "It's a tough course and I'm finding it difficult," admitted McGimpsey nonetheless, all of which confirms that patience and concentration are vital attributes around the lakeside course.

McGimpsey's next opponent is a young Dubliner who has shown quite a liking for the Killeen course. Stackstown's Mark Campbell, who became the first golfing scholarship student at UCD.