Golf Digest

Girls only team to reach top flight

EUROPEAN TEAMS:Ireland, seeking back-to-back victories, cruised into the quarter-finals of the European Girls Team Championship over the Aalborg course in Denmark yesterday.

They qualified for the top flight of eight in second place on 430 – four over par – an aggregate bettered only by France who ended the strokeplay phase on 423.

Ireland will meet the hosts today in matchplay for a place in the semi-finals. On paper, they should progress as they qualified some 16 strokes better than their opponents.

Once again the Maguire twins delivered the goods that took the Irish into the last four. This time it was Lisa, with a three-under 68, who was a stroke lower than Leona, while Stephanie Meadows improved by two on her Tuesday display with a 75.

England also made into the quarter-finals and they will meet Spain today while France play Finland and Belgium take on Sweden.

Ireland’s hopes of winning a third European Men’s Amateur team title in four years were dashed in Sweden when they failed dismally to make the top flight for matchplay and will now battle with the also-rans.

For the second day their big guns failed to fire with none of the six players getting close to par over the Osterakers course.

In the end they finished in a dismal 16th place at the bottom of the second flight with ninth position the best they can achieve.

And it was a pretty dismal story in the Boys and Women’s championships where they also failed to qualify.

In the Women’s contest they finished in a tie for 13th place on 772 – 42 over par – with Wales. Curtis Cup player Danielle McVeigh had a much better day carding a two-under-par 71, but there was not much support with the next best being 77 by Mary Dowling and Sinead O’Sullivan.

England and Scotland made it into the last eight.

Ireland were also disappointing in the Boys at Klassis in Turkey, finishing in 11th position. Jeff Hopkins again shone, adding a 73 to his 70 of Tuesday, and Stephen Barry (73) and Chriis Selfridge (74) gave good accounts of themselves.

EUROPEAN AMATEUR TEAM CHAMPIONSHIPS

MEN(Osterakers,Sweden) Leading scores – 721 Denmark; 721 Italy; 723 England 727 Spain; 729 Wales; 731 Finland; 735 Germany 740 Sweden. Others – 757 Ireland (P Cutler 75, A Dunbar 75, C Curley 77, P Murray 77, P Dunne 79. Disc: D Lernihan 79).

GIRLS(Aalborg, Denmark) – Leading scores – 423 France; 430 Ireland (Lisa Maguire 68, Leona Maguire 69, S Meadows 75. Disc: L McCarthy 78) 434 Spain 436 Belgium 442 Sweden.

WOMEN(La Manga, Spain) - Leading scores: 730 Sweden 731 Spain ; 741 England; 750 Denmark; 756 Germany; 757 Scotland; 759 Netherlands; 760 France, Austria. Others – 772 Ireland (D McVeigh 71, M Dowling, S O'Sullivan 77, V Bradshaw, C Reid 80. Disc: G O'Leary 84).

BOYS(Klassis, Turkey) - Leading scores: 706 Austria, 712 England, 714 France, 721 Denmark, Norway, 722 Italy 724 Belgium. Others 737 Ireland (J Hopkins 143, C Selfridge 146, D McElroy 147, S Barry 148, L Harnett 153, K Lynch 177).