A rather bizarre story circulated around the demesne as third round play in the World Amateur Team Championship was under way. It was of a car being driven around the estate, with a man shouting from an open window in an effort to distract players. Eventually the interloper went away before too much damage was done, perhaps believing he had made some kind of point; whatever it was.
Ireland’s cause didn’t get away so lightly.
A quest for a first Eisenhower Trophy success since going it alone, which had enjoyed a smooth ride for the opening two rounds, suffered a speed bump that knocked Ireland off course. On a cool, breezy day seemingly tailor-made for the home brigade, the wheels fell off the home challenge: just one stroke off the midway lead at the start of play, Ireland struggled on the Montgomerie Course to fall down to tied-12th, all of 12 strokes behind leaders New Zealand and nine behind those occupying second place.
Of the Irish trio, only Conor Purcell managed to break par. The 21-year-old Portmarnock player overcame a tough start to rescue his round with three birdies in the closing six holes to sign for a 71, but Robin Dawson – who’d been bogey-free for his opening two rounds – and John Murphy each recorded 74s that, on a day where other teams shared in a birdie blitz, saw them move backwards.
And, yet, any disappointment – and that emotion was evident – was matched by an attitude of defiance. “We are far from out of it. We just need to keep the heads up and keep a positive attiude,” said Purcell, an approach echoed by Dawson who added: “We definitely have the firing power to shoot a couple of 63s or 64 or something like that. With me, it’s just a small tweak. If I get the putter hot I’ll go really low. That’s what we need I think.”
The damage, though, will be hard to repair, especially given the quality of golf on display. Unquestionably, Denzel Ieremia and Daniel Hillier (who shared medallist honours in this year’s US amateur) have proven to be the strong men of the New Zealand team – their scores contributing on all three days so far – with Kerry Mountcastle failing to break their duopoly as yet.
The Kiwis carry a three shot lead into the final round, with Spain, Thailand and the United States in a three-way share of second. New Zealand are seeking to win the Eisenhower Trophy for just the second time, and first since a team including a future US Open champion Michael Campbell took the honours.
Ireland’s high hopes were dealt a blow early on. For both Purcell and Murphy, the Par 4 fifth hole, proved ruinous as they ran up double bogeys – Purcell’s tee shot finding a fairway bunker and his recovery finding another – and their problems were compounded when they also bogeyed the sixth. In Dawson’s case, his bogey-free run of 39 holes ended with a three-putt on fourth and he would also incur the wrath of the Montgomerier Course’s bunkers with back-to-back bogeys on the ninth and 10th.
Only Purcell was able to navigate a route back under par. Ironically, his momentum got going with a fine par save – holing from off the green from 30 feet - on the 12th. “It gave me a kickstart,” he remarked. It did that, with birdies on the 13th, 15th – where he hit a 3-iron approach from 230 yards to 15 feet and narrowly missed the eagle putt – and 18th, when he made a great up-and-down from the river’s edge. “I was willing that putt in,” he said of the 12-footer that allowed him to dip under par on his round.
“Deflated? A little bit, yes, but I think we need to stand back and look at what we have done over the first two days. We put ourselves in with a shot and we have a great opporunity to go out there and get plenty of birdies and make up ground,” said Purcell of the team’s fame-plan for the final day’s play on the O’Meara Course.
World Amateur Team Championship, Eisenhower Trophy round three scores and totals:
404 New Zealand (Ieremia 65, Mountcastle 70, Hillier 69)
407 Spain (Pastor 71, Del Rey 68, Hidalgo 66)
407 Thailand (Hamamoto 71, Kaewkanjana 75, Chothirunrungrueng 65)
407 United States of America (Morikawa 66, Suh 68, Hammer 72)
408 Denmark (Axelsen 74, Hojgaard 67, Hojgaard 70)
408 Italy (Manzoni 73, Mazzoli 66, Scalise 68)
412 Germany (Hammer 74, Long 66, John 69)
412 Norway (Hovland 65, Reitan 68, Volden 73)
413 Austria (Steinlechner 73, Regner 69, Lipold 69)
414 Canada (Bernard 71, Rank 71, Savoie 71)
415 England (Petrozzi 67, Waite 73, Jordan 70)
416 Australia (Lee 66, Micheluzzi 71, Wools-Cobb 71)
416 Ireland (Murphy 74, Purcell 71, Dawson 74)
416 Scotland (Lumsden 69, Scott 67, Walker 74)
417 Argentina (Schonbaum 76, Fernandez de Oliveira 71, Contini 68)
417 Sweden (Widing 70, Gillberg 76, Nilehn 73)
418 Republic of Korea (Choi 68, Jang 72, Oh 71)
418 Switzerland (Freiburghaus 70, Cohen 68, Ettlin 76)
420 Japan (Kanaya 67, Nakajima 72, Imano 75)
421 Chile (Morgan Birke 74, Errazuriz 72, Gana 69)
421 Wales (Chamberlain 70, Hapgood 72, Williams 75)
422 Poland (Pakosch 71, Pedryc 67, Szmidt 72)
423 Colombia (Ramirez Velandia 70, Restrepo 74, Ardila 69)
423 Czech Republic (Zuska 66, Hruby 73, Zach 75)
424 Netherlands (Ji 68, Kraai 77, van Tilburg 70)
425 Serbia (Cvetkovic 81, Dimitrijevic 70, Gudelj 73)
426 Belgium (Dumont de Chassart 69, De Bondt 72, de Wouters d’Oplinter 73)
426 India (Kaul 76, Bedi 79, John Thomas 69)
427 Singapore (Ho 78, Lee 72, Foo 67)
428 Costa Rica (Gagne 72, Chaplet 72, Ortiz 70)
429 Guatemala (Villavicencio Calderon 71, Castellanos Conde 69, Gurtner 74)
429 Peoples Republic of China (Chen 73, Liang 79, Zhang 70)
429 Portugal (Lopes 70, Girao 75, Lencart 73)
431 France (Gandon 74, Lacroix 74, Veyret 73)
431 Peru (Zubiate 78, Freundt-Thurne 72, Barco 71)
431 South Africa (Saulez 69, Nienaber 68, Mitchell 74)
432 Estonia (Hellat 72, Jegers 75, Turba 77)
433 Taipei, Chinese (Wang 67, Lai 71, Ho 69)
434 Finland (Mahonen 78, Honkala 70, Valimaki 69)
434 Hong Kong, China (Cheung 72, D’Souza 72, Ng 70)
434 Iceland (Sveinbergsson 75, Juliusson 68, Petursson 75)
435 Dominican Republic (Valverde A 81, Pena 77, Guerra 71)
435 Mexico (Pereda 75, Terrazas 74, Ortiz Becerra 70)
435 Venezuela (Garcia 71, Brauckmeyer 77, Prieto 79)
436 Puerto Rico (Esteve 71, Alverio 75, Morales 77)
439 Zimbabwe (Allard 73, Amm 79, Krog 77)
440 Slovakia (Brezovsky 69, Mach 75, Lucansky 81)
442 Bermuda (Dillas 71, Ming 79, Campbell 72)
442 Morocco (Id Omar 71, Raouzi 79, Dahmane 80)
443 Brazil (Ishii 77, Park 74, Machado 70)
446 Turkey (Esmer 83, Yamac 76, Acikalin 71)
449 Saudi Arabia (Almulla 78, Alsakha 78, Attieh 77)
450 Uruguay (Reyes 77, Teuten 78, Alvarez 74)
451 Luxembourg (Weis 77, Weis 72, Winandy 90)
452 Slovenia (Trnovec 72, Potocar 77, Burkelca 78)
453 Croatia (Buerk 74, Stepinac 79, Vucemil 80)
453 Qatar (Al Kaabi 75, Al Kuwari 77, Al Shahrani 74)
459 Panama (Ducruet 75, Cargiulo 77, Ordonez 76)
460 Liechtenstein (Schredt 77, Schreiber 73, Schredt 79)
460 Malta (Borg 79, Critien 81, Micallef 77)
461 Cayman Islands (Hastings 74, Wight 80, Jarvis 80)
465 Guam (Camacho 76, Manalo 86, Poe 82)
465 United Arab Emirates (Al Jasmi 80, Skaik 77, Thabet 81)
466 Republic of Moldova (Coica 80, Volostnykh 76, Podgainii 91)
467 Bulgaria (Marinov 74, Savov 78, Staykov 79)
481 Lithuania (Vaicius 91, Momkus 83, Markevicius 71)
493 Ghana (Angel 85, Dogbe 79, Kusi-Boateng 89)
497 Nigeria (Thompson 88, Inalegwu 80, Thompson 92)
509 Haiti (Brandt 91, Saint-Fort 90, Mehu 82)
520 Iraq (Al-Hashimi WD, Barnouti 96, Radee 77)
551 Gabon (Illien 92, Perez Ayo 88)
564 Armenia (Balyan 97, Karakhanyan 90, Saghatelyan 101)
