There were crumbs of comfort for Eamon Darcy last Friday after failing to catch Paul McGinley in the Irish Professionals' Championship at Co Louth the previous weekend. At Powerscourt, the former World Cup player collected the PGA Southern Branch title for the first time.

Darcy fired a three-under-par 69 to win the MasterCard event by just one stroke from Philip Walton who looked on the way to victory when three-under-par out in the country but the Malahide man lost ground on the way in.

On the homeward run the 48-year-old winner carded a hat-trick of birdies from the 11th before carding a bogey five at the 14th.

Spare a thought for Leslie Walker. He took a treble-bogey eight at the 17th with the championship in his reach. Walker who moves to Dundalk as club professional next month finished on 71 and a par at the second last hole would have given him the championship title to add to his Irish Club Professionals' crown he already holds.