Youthful Jones leads qualifiers

City of Derry's young senior international David Jones stormed to the top of the leader board at Royal Portrush last evening after the second and final qualifying round of the Carlsberg-sponsored North of Ireland championship.

Jones fired a two-under-par 70 on the big Dunluce course for a two-card total of 137 following his three-under 67 on the Valley on Monday. His card was sprinkled with birdies and bogies. After losing a ball at the second hole things did not look good for the 19-year-old who is making his debut in the championship. However, he steered a three-iron stone dead for a birdie three at the fourth to recover the lost ground. After turning in level par 36, he went two under with birdies at the long 10th and the par four 12th. At the 10th he pitched and putted while he left his nine-iron approach just five feet from the flag at 12.

From there to the end Jones managed just two pars as he pencilled in bogies at the 13th, where he missed the green, and the 15th where he blocked his tee shot. Then he made back-to-back birdies, getting down from 18 feet at the 16th and reaching the long 17th in two blows.

"I was lucky to scramble a par at the last but I am as happy as Larry with my performance," and To be the leading qualifier isn't bad," said Jones.

Just one shot adrift is Dundalk's Danny Coyle, who was also around Dunluce in 70 shots yesterday. Coyle, a political science undergraduate at Berkeley University in California, made four birdies in his steady round.

Keeping the home flag flying is Chris Brown who returned a 70 as well, including an eagle at the 10th. Brown is the holder of the British Universities match-play and stroke-play titles.

Best performance on Dunluce of the entire championship to date was that of 21-year-old Gavin Lunny from Rathsallagh who carded a four-under-par 68..

The cut was made on seven-over-par 149 but only two players on that score made it through to this morning's first round of match-play. Among those missing out was senior international Andrew McCormick while former North champions Des Ballentine (150) and Michael McGinley (152) are also out of the competition.

There were only 59 places on offer as five members of the international side which played in Italy last week plus defending champion, Paddy Gribben, who missed out on the European action because of a damaged hand, were exempt from qualifying.

However, Gary Cullen the Irish Open Strokeplay champion from Belvoirstown withdrew from the tournament yesterday.