If there is a common belief that amateur golf these days is all about supple young things who thrash the ball uncommon distances, then Barry Reddan is proving the exception. The old man in the South of Ireland championship at Lahinch, Reddan - at 56 years of age - bemused himself as much as anyone yesterday in defying all logic by keeping alive his hopes of again winning a trophy that nestled in his living room all of 15 years ago.
By day's end, and after dispatching firstly David Mortimer and then Mark Campbell, Reddan had reached the semi-finals of the Irish Shell-sponsored championship.
"I'm astonished," he remarked candidly. "It shouldn't really be, should it? Not with all these young lads playing."
Indeed, Des Smyth, his brother-in-law, who was in the gallery, remarked that the feat probably matched his own in the British Open at Muirfield. "No," quipped Reddan, "it's better."
On a links playing long and demanding, with a north-westerly wind coming in off the Atlantic to make shot-making all the more important, Reddan was very much the elder statesman of those who reached the last four. Sean McTernan, from Co Sligo, a 21-year-old student at the University of Toledo, will provide the semi-final opposition for Reddan, while Colm Moriarty (23) and Mark Ryan (22) will contest the other semi-final.
Reddan's progress thus far is the stuff of fantasy. He only travelled down to the Clare links after missing the cut in the British Seniors Open at Newcastle last Friday - "if my tee-time there had been even an hour later, I wouldn't have played here, " he confessed.
"I'm tough mentally," said Reddan. "If I make a mistake, that's it. It's forgotten by the time I go to play the next shot."
And, on a course as testing as the lengthened Old Course, that philosophy has stood to him well.
Yesterday, in the fifth round, he rolled in a twisting 30-footer from off the green at the first tie-hole to defeat Mortimer - but there was no need for such dramatics later in the day as he defeated an out-of-sorts Campbell by 4 and 3.
The critical stretch came from the sixth, where Campbell's approach went through the back of the green and finished in horrendous rough. He failed to get up and down, and Reddan won with a par. He made a great up and down at the seventh for another winning par, and repeated the feat at the eighth for another winning par. He turned four up.
McTernan, who enjoyed a hugely successful collegiate season with the Toledo Rockets, winning no fewer than five team tournaments, was twice forced to show resilience yesterday. In the fifth round, he beat the defending champion, Justin Kehoe, at the 20th, and there was a sense of déjà vu later on when he also beat Eddie Power on the second tie hole in his quarter-final encounter.
A proven championship winner, in that he collected provincial trophies at boys and youths level, McTernan claimed the secret was to "keep it tight, not to make mistakes."
There was also sudden death drama in Ryan's quarter-final win. Last year's Irish youths' champion, Ryan - a member of Grange but also of Lahinch, where he first started to play golf as a seven-year-old - was three down to Michael McDermott in his quarter-final but produced four birdies on the back nine to force extra holes.
Probably the most impressive shot of that birdie blitz came on the 10th, where he hit a four-iron approach to four feet.
His win, when it came, was nothing as dramatic, as McDermott pulled his approach to the third play-off hole and never found the ball.
Moriarty, meanwhile, was two down after five holes to Johnny Foster but won the sixth and eighth holes to be level at the turn, and then hit a four-iron tee-shot to six feet at the 11th to go one up and won the 15th before closing out the match by 2 and 1.
FIFTH ROUND - E Power (Kilkenny) bt E Chaudoey (Le Gouveneur, Fr) 1 hole; S McTernan (Co Sligo) bt J Kehoe (Birr) at 20th; M Campbell (Stackstown) bt G Nugent (Kilkenny) 6 and 5; B Reddan (Co Louth) bt D Mortimer (Connemara) at 19th; M Ryan (Grange) bt S Irving (Howth) 3 and 2; M McDermott (Stackstown) bt G Maybin (Ballyclare) 4 and 3; J Foster (Ballyclare) bt G McNeill (Waterford) 1 hole; C Moriarty (Athlone) bt D Crowe (Dunmurry) 5 and 3.
QUARTER-FINALS - McTernan bt Power at 20th; Reddan bt Campbell 4 and 3; Ryan bt McDermott at 21st; Moriarty bt Foster 2 and 1.
SEMI-FINALS - 8.30: McTernan v Reddan. 9.00: Ryan v Moriarty. Final at 2.00.
