When Paddy Gribben steps onto his shuttle flight from Belfast's Aldergrove Airport today, perhaps he'll finally believe that he really is destined to play in next week's Eisenhower Trophy in Chile. The hop over to London is the first stage of an airborne journey that will take almost 20 hours to Santiago - but, up to a few days ago, Gribben, the sole Irishman in the British and Irish team competing in the world amateur team championship, still didn't know if the R & A would sanction their participation in South America.
Last week, the Ladies Golf Union withdrew their British and Irish team from the Espirto Santo Trophy for fear of the players' safety due to the arrest in London of Chile's former president, General Pinochet.
However, the R & A dispatched an advance party to check out the situation and are sufficiently satisfied about safety arrangements to allow the four-man team, captained by Peter McEvoy, to travel.
"I would have felt terrible to be picked on the Eisenhower team but not get the chance to play," said Gribben, who is joined on the team by Gary Wolstenholme and Luke Donald of England and Scotland's strokeplay champion, Lorne Kelly. "Indeed, there was a time when I worried if I was on the team at all, because I had to wait around three weeks after it was picked before I got the official confirmation."
Gribben is just the eighth Irish player to be selected on the British and Irish team - which seems scant justice given Ireland's contribution to amateur golf - but, remarkably, is the third Warrenpoint player to receive such an honour. Ronan Rafferty (1980) and Raymond Burns (1992) were the other members of the Down club to play. His deserved selection on the team comes after a fine season in which he won the European amateur strokeplay championship (the first Irishman to win the title) and the North of Ireland championship, and was unbeaten in singles in the Home Internationals.
John Hutchinson was the only player to break 80 in the gales at the Island Golf Club yesterday on his way to winning the Bank of Ireland sponsored Links Pro-am.
The Royal Dublin one-handicapper only partially tamed the hurricane conditions when he reached the turn in two over par 37 and battled his way home in 43 to win by one shot from John Kelly, Bobby Browne, Barry Reddan and Kenny Stevenson.
Kelly won the gross prize with a best of the day 80. The Ward driving range professional went to the turn in seven over par 42 but came back in an incredible 38 to beat Browne on the back nine.
