Delaney on form in Texas
Irish women Tara Delaney and Danielle McVeigh enjoyed mixed fortunes in Texas this week as they battled the Lone Star State’s infamous winds at the Texas A&M ‘Mo’morial’ tournament.
Playing for the host team, McVeigh, in her second year at Texas A&M would have expected to shine in an event in which she scored a top-20 finish as a freshman. Yet the Kilkeel, Co Down, golfer missed the second round with an injury after opening with a 78 at the par-72 Traditions Golf Club in Bryan and posted an 83 in the final round.
Delaney, however, halted a run of poor form this spring season by claiming a top-10 finish as 12th-ranked Kent State University from Ohio tied for fourth with McVeigh’s Texas A&M in a 15-team field.
Curtis Cup 2006 player Delaney, from Carlow, led Kent State home with a 76 in the third round to finish in a tie for ninth overall at 235.
“The wind picked up and really made things difficult today,” KSU head coach Mike Morrow said. “I thought Tara had a real nice finish and a well-earned spot in the top 10.”
Delaney and McVeigh’s teams, ranked 12th and 21st in the nation respectively, will lock horns once again when they return to action on March 21 at the Liz Murphey Collegiate Classic in Athens, Georgia.
Lisburn’s Gareth Shaw continued his good start to the spring campaign with a top-10 finish at the General Jim Hackler Championship at the TPC of Myrtle Beach in South Carolina.
The East Tennessee State University senior finished the tournament tied for 16th after posting a final round score of three-over 75 as his 22nd-ranked team climbed from 10th to a tie for seventh on the final day of play.
Shaw finished nine strokes back of individual medalist Derek Fathauer from Louisville and was followed home by team-mates Cian McNamara of Limerick in a tie for 29th at 12-over and West Waterford’s Seamus Power, who fired the Bucs’ best round of the final day with a one-over-par 73 on the way to a tie for 31st at 14-over.
Representing the same university’s women’s team, Galway’s Sinead O’Sullivan followed up her individual victory last time out at the South Alabama Lady Jaguar Invitational with a tie for 49th at the 2008 Women’s Golf Pinehurst Challenge in North Carolina.
ETSU placed second at the par 72-5968-yard Pinehurst No 8 course.
Dublin’s Dawn-Marie Conaty , a senior at the University of Memphis fired a 242 (83-83-76) to tie for 66th.
Carlow’s Ann Marie Dalton earned herself High Point University’s Athlete of the Week award after completing a back-to-back double of top-15 finishes.
Dalton followed up a T15 finish at the previous week’s Wofford Invitational with a fifth-place showing at the NIU-Springlake Invitational in Sebring, Florida.
After firing rounds of 74-83 Ann Marie has now scored a Top 10 finish eight times in her career at HPU.
The Irish senior earned her eighth career Top 10 finish and second of the season.
Also in Florida, Mayo’s Stephen Healy eked out a one-under par 71 to claim a top 10 finish at even-par for the North-South Intercollegiate on the par-72 Jacksonville Beach Golf Club.
Healy, a freshman at Jacksonville University, was one-under par on the front nine, but rallied with a two-putt birdie on No 16 to get to two-under, only to bogey the 17th and settle for a tie for sixth.
