11th April 2010: Offaly Player Announced As Irish Captain

In less than two weeks on Thursday April 22nd an Irish side will take on rapidly improving Catalonia in an International Challenge at Glenville. The National Executive Committee of the Pitch & Putt Union of Ireland recently announced that Erry's and Offaly's Tracey McGrath would be honoured with the captaincy for this challenge while Niall Reynolds (Clare Road and NEC Officer) was announced as the team manager. The NEC bestowed the honour on Tracey in recognition of her achievements last season in which she secured an historic Senior Ladies National Championship Double a feat that has only been accomplished by 5 other ladies and became the Irish Number 1 Rnaked Lady as a result.

Tracey will captain an eight strong team consisting of the six topped ranked gents in Ireland and the top two ranked ladies in Ireland. The Irish team will consist of Tracey McGrath (Erry, Offaly), Geraldine Ward (Portmarnock, Dublin), Ray Murphy (Templebreedy, Cork), John Walsh (Collins, Cork), Brian Delaney (E.S.B., Cork), Frank Dineen (St. Anne's, Cork), Paul O'Brien (Lakeside, Tipperary) and Jonathan Goodall (Tralee, Kerry).

This is without doubt an extremely strong Irish side and in terms of Irish Senior Titles alone they have amassed 27 of these glittering prizes. Geraldine Ward has been the dominant figure in Ladies Pitch and Putt for over 25 years while Tracey McGrath overcame the heartbreak of near misses in the past when claiming both Matchplay and Strokeplay titles last year. Moving to the Gents Ray Murphy has been to the fore for just over ten years and last year made it an epic 4 in a row in the Gents Matchplay, John Walsh is a winner in both the Matchplay and Strokeplay, while Bryan Delaney and Frank Dineen have each won National Strokeplay titles, both Jonathan Goodall and Paul O'Brien have gone so close to winning a National Matchplay each losing in the final to Ray Murphy.

With such a past record any team with these players must be hotly fancied, add in the fact that the match will be played in Glenville a course with which all of them will be familiar plus the fact that home support will be cheering for them and it would be a brave individual would back against them. Make a note in your diary Thursday April 22nd Glenville and look forward to a feast of Pitch & Putt as Ireland take on Catalonia. (Information partially extracted from the PPUI report)

We wish Tracey the very best of luck in her role as Irish Captain and hope it will be a memorable day for the entire team as they seek revenge from the Irish loss to Catalonia a few years ago in this very International challenge.

Tracey following her maiden National Matchplay victory at Castletown last June
pictured with Gents Matchplay winner Ray Murphy, who won his fourth consecutive title