Golf

Video: King's Cup golf at Lough Erne

The King's Cup is taking place at Lough Erne, Co Fermanagh 
The King's Cup is taking place at Lough Erne, Co Fermanagh  The King's Cup is taking place at Lough Erne, Co Fermanagh 

Ireland look well placed to retain the International King's Cup after a dominant afternoon greensomes session at Lough Erne Resort.

The Ryder Cup style tournament which honours golfing legend Arnold Palmer, features 16-man teams of amateur golfers from both Ireland and the USA going head to head over the Sir Nick Faldo designed course in Co Fermanagh.

Under King's Cup rules, players receive two points for a hole won, one point each for a hole halved and nothing for a lost hole. Leading by eight points after the morning fourballs, Ireland then won five greensomes ties to extend their lead to 30 points ahead of Thursday's singles.

The turnaround was epitomised by the Dunmurry Springs GC pairing of Darren Carey and Paul Sweeney who, beaten 24-12 by David Adams and Jacob Pavlk in the morning, responded to see off the same pair 21-15 in the afternoon.

“We were never down in the tie, played solid golf and dovetailed nicely,” said Kildare native Carey.

Ireland picked up points on their opponents in the top four ties with wins for Darren McKeever and Declan McKeever, Kevin Commins and Tom Muldoon and Vincent Owens and Martin Peters.

The run of victories was finally brought to a halt by the Parker, Colorado duo of Carl Ellis and Andy Titterton who beat the Co Galway pairing of Alan Moran and Colm Feeney 20-16.

“We just ground it out,” said Ellis, a 52-year-old who plays his golf at Pinery Country Club.

“Andy and I have played a lot of best ball competitions and that experience certainly helped today.”

The USA picked up two further greensomes wins via Bill Orne and Michael White and Andy Kieffer and Phil Smith but late in the day, Westport GC duo Liam Friel and John Collins completed a 25-11 victory over Michael DiFrancesco and Gary Morris to put Ireland in the box seat.

With a total of 1152 points on offer, the first team to reach 577 points will win the title.