THE weight of history, and expectation, is against Ireland's women upsetting the odds when the European Team championship commences in Nordcenter, Finland, tomorrow. Yet, Claire Dowling (nee Hourihane) believes the six-player team format will actually benefit Ireland's chances.
Dowling, winner of five national titles and a member of the last Irish team to lift the European crown at Waterloo in Belgium in 1983, is non playing captain to a team which mixes experience with youth.
Indeed, three players - Irish champion Suzanne Fanagan, Alison Coffey and Michelle McGreevy - are making their European championship debuts, while Ada O'Sullivan, Eileen Rose Power and Hazel Kavanagh have experienced the pressures of this event in previous years.
However, a measure of the ILGU's determination to be a major force in Europe is that Howard Bennett, the national coach, who brought the team to Portugal for a training programme earlier this season, has made the trip to Scandinavia.
Two rounds of stroke play qualifying will take place tomorrow and Thursday, with the teams then being divided into flights for the matchplay stage. Given the rising strength of women's golf on the continent, Ireland's first priority will be to make the top flight.
Mary Coffey had enjoyed a sneak look at the gold necklace which her mother, Phil, was offering as the prize in her Lady Captain's competition at Clontarf Golf Club.
But Mary never envisaged she would manage to win it. The reason for her doubt was that she had been cut two shots for winning the PGA Tankard at the club, returning 41 points off 27. "I didn't think I had any chance of winning the eaptain's prize after that," she admitted.
However, the operations manager - who had set out this summer to "get my handieap drown" - produced a nett 66 (-5) to elaim her mother's prize.
"I was amazed. It was great to win in the first place, but to win my mother's prize made it really special," she said. She was cut a further three shots for her marvellous efforts.
Paddy O'Sullivan, a member of Co Louth, was well rewarded for his short journey to eontest Dundalk's Junior Scrateh Cup. O'Sullivan fired two sueeessive rounds of 75 for a 36-hole total of l 50, three shots elear of the host club's Alan Cole, who beat Slade Valley's Terry Lilly for seeond plaee by virtue of a better second round.
Corrstown Golf Club, in north eounty Dublin, will hold its first Pro-Am today ... and Temple Street Children's Hospital are guaranteed to be the big winners. Although the eountry's club professionals will be playing for a prizefund of Pounds 10,000, a similiar amount will be presented tonight to the hospital.
If you thought Colin Montgomerie was a runaway winner in Druids Glen, Eileen Duggan almost fitted into the same category in the Lady Captain's prize at Kilkenny Golf Club. Eileen seorehed around in a nett 58, 11 shots ahead of her nearest rival, only to diseover her seore didn't eount beeause she had only returned two eards in eompetition instead of the neeessary three.
Dominie Reilly, the PGA professional attaehed to the Leopardstown Golf Centre, is to host intensive eoaehing weeks for juniors. Three separate sehedules - (1)14th, 16th and 18th July; (2) 6th-8th August; and, (3) 25th, 27th, 29th August - have been drawn up. There will be tuition in both long and short games, putting, basie rules and golf etiquette.
