PAT MURRAY, the 41-year-old Limerick Golf Club secretary/manager, finally shrugged off more than 20 years of disappointment and frustration at Lahinch yesterday when he captured the South of Ireland Championship with a two-holes final victory over Stephen Healy of Claremorris.
Murray had reached seven semi-finals in the championship prior to yesterday without ever getting to the final and admitted that he wondered if he would ever do so having again reached the last four on Tuesday. However, he broke the hoodoo and did so in style with a birdie on the 17th to clinch a 3 and 1 victory over Eugene Smith of Ardee.
Healy, a beaten finalist earlier in the year in the West of Ireland, qualified for the decider with a clear-cut win over the young Knock golfer Colin Fairweather with most predicting that the strong wind whipping in off the nearby Atlantic would have a decisive bearing on the outcome. Murray, 20 years older than his opponent and Irish Close champion in 2009, had a huge advantage in experience and it looked as if he would make that pay when he claimed the first two holes.
But Healy hung in commendably well and with Murray admitting to feeling the effects of a major Achilles tendon injury that sidelined him for the first six months of the year, the Connacht man pulled back to level pegging by the seventh and they turned still all square.
Murray regained the lead with a par five at the 12th but had to produce a superb little chip from the back of the next green, probably the best shot of the final, to protect his advantage. With the pressure now looming ever greater, he bunkered his approach to the 14th and lost it to a par four. But Healy was also feeling the tension and hooked a destructive tee shot off the short 16th and had to concede the hole. Worse was to follow as he missed a two-foot putt for a winning par at the 17th and when he pulled his second to the 18th out of bounds, Murray could afford to relax at long last.
“This is the pinnacle of my career, the one I always wanted“, he stated. “I probably put a lot of pressure on myself year in, year out in all those semi and quarter- finals. There was probably a case of trying too hard on occasions. My leg is sore, I am only back since June after an operation for a serious Achilles tendon injury suffered last Christmas, and that tightened up an awful lot. After 14, 15 this morning it was tight but there is nothing I can about that. I’m just supposed to rest it but there was no resting it today.”
With hundreds of his Limerick members in the gallery, Murray wasn’t short of supporters to help him celebrate last night!
