Co Louth's Gavin Tiernan defeated in Amateur Championship final on last hole
American amateur Ethan Fang has beaten Co Louth's Gavin Tiernan 1 up in the Amateur Championship final at Royal St George's after a titanic 36-hole contest.
The win earns the world number seven and University of Oklahoma student a place in next month's Open Championship at Portrush and an invite to the Masters next April.
Tiernan had been the first player to reach the final after coming through the strokeplay pre-qualifying, and played 139 holes this week before his 36-hole final on Saturday, and was a surprise package to make it there at 1,340th in the amateur world rankings.
There was no more than one hole between two players for much of this ding-dong battle, with Tiernan leading for much of the first 18, his highlight a superb tee shot to a few feet at the 16th that enabled him to lead 1 up after 18.
READ MORE
Fang won the first hole of the second 18 holes with a par and then took the lead for the first time after 23 holes after another Tiernan bogey. However, hitting the par 5 seventh green in two enabled the Co Louth player to get it back to all-square.
After a few more back and forths, Fang took seemingly a decisive 2 up lead by taking the 14th and 15th holes, before Tiernan holed two big putts on 16 and 17 to bring the match all-square heading up the 36th hole of the day. But Fang closed out the match with a brilliant iron approach to five feet as he holed the putt to become the first American winner of the Amateur since Drew Weaver in 2007.
Tiernan was looking to become the ninth winner of the competition, which has been running since 1885. Previous winners include Sergio Garcia and José María Olazábal.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Irish Sun
24 minutes ago
- The Irish Sun
Jack O'Connor says Croke Park return will lift pressure after David Clifford hat-trick sinks Cavan
JACK O'CONNOR expects next weekend's return to Croke Park to ease the pressure on his Kerry side after they held off a second-half resurgence from Cavan to take their place in the last eight of the Sam Maguire race. David Clifford bagged a hat-trick in Killarney as the hosts put themselves on a quarter-final collision course with All-Ireland champions Armagh. Advertisement 2 Kerry manager Jack O'Connor is in confident form after Kerry's win over Cavan 2 David Clifford bagged a hat-trick in the win over Cavan If Donegal and Galway advance from today's meetings with Louth and Down respectively, Kerry will face the Orchard in a repeat of last year's semi-final. Although the Kingdom kept Cavan at arm's length, their wastefulness in attack kept the door ajar for the visitors to reduce the gap to four points with 12 minutes remaining. In the context of their shock defeat to Meath seven days earlier, O'Connor cited intensity and tackling as areas where his team showed improvement. However, he also felt they 'got a bit frantic at times and made poor decisions with the ball' as they allowed Cavan to chip away at the ten-point half-time buffer. Advertisement read more on gaa O'Connor admitted: "There's a lot of pressure on Kerry players from the supporters. That was a difficult environment for the lads to play football in today. After their performance last week, there was huge pressure on them to perform and that can be a difficult environment. 'Often it's easier to go to Croke Park, away from home, and actually express yourself and play without fear and play with a bit of abandon. That's what we're planning on next weekend." Having played with the breeze, Kerry looked comfortable as they led by 2-12 to 0-8 at the interval. Clifford netted twice inside the opening 19 minutes and Cavan were also handicapped by a black card to Niall Carolan. But the Munster champions were repeatedly guilty of butchering goal chances. Gavin White struck the post in the first half when he sought to raise a green flag. Dylan Geaney also gathered a rebound to tap over a point after Clifford's first attempt to claim his hat-trick was kept out by Liam Brady, who made a string of fine saves. Advertisement Most read in GAA Football Exclusive Clifford left two more goal chances go to waste in the third quarter. Conor Geaney also had a couple thwarted and Graham O'Sullivan squandered one too. At the other end, the Cavan charge was spearheaded by Paddy Lynch, whose final tally of 0-12 included four two-pointers. 'Just in time for Father's Day' - Dublin GAA legends welcome the birth of precious baby daughter When he landed a huge effort from nearly 50 metres out, the natives briefly grew restless at the sight of the 2-16 to 1-15 scoreline. Evan Crowe had punched home a 51st-minute goal for Cavan which kickstarted a spell that saw them outscore the opposition by 1-6 to 0-1. Advertisement Clifford then gave Kerry more breathing room by finally claiming his third goal, having been teed up by Killian Spillane after Joe O'Connor saw another opportunity for his side foiled by Brady. Cavan responded with a Lynch two-pointer but Kerry saw out the game by firing 0-5 without reply. That included a point for Leaving Cert student Tomás Kennedy, who came off the bench for his senior debut. Injury-hit Kerry can now look forward to a first Croker date since their National League final win over Mayo. O'Connor said: 'It's a great footballer's pitch. It's a huge pitch and there's space there and that's why you want to play football. Advertisement 'This is a good pitch here in Fitzgerald Stadium as well. I just thought there were times today when it looked like the pressure got to the lads a bit and they didn't express themselves the way they could have." The Kerry boss lamented the latest injury setback to namesake Diarmuid O'Connor, who was forced off after injuring his shoulder in the throw-in. He joins Mike Breen, Tony Brosnan, Paul Geaney and Barry Dan O'Sullivan on the sidelines. Kingdom chief O'Connor also responded to comments from Darragh Ó Sé, who claimed 'the mood isn't great' in Kerry and that Armagh will bring their season to an end next time out. O'Connor said: "Darragh would be as well off now to go away and do a bit of coaching himself." Advertisement KERRY: S Ryan 0-3, 1tpf, 1 '45; P Murphy, J Foley, T O'Sullivan; B Ó Beaglaioch, T Morley, G White; D O'Connor, S O'Brien; J O'Connor, G O'Sullivan 0-1, S O'Shea 0-4, 1tp, 1f; C Geaney 0-1, D Clifford 3-7, 2tp, 1f, D Geaney 0-2. Subs: M O'Shea for D O'Connor 3 mins, D Casey for Morley 43, P Clifford for C Geaney 56, K Spillane 0-1 for D Geaney 56, E Looney for G O'Sullivan (temp) 61-ft, T Kennedy 0-1 for Ó Beaglaioch CAVAN: L Brady; C Reilly, N Carolan, B O'Connell; J McLoughlin 0-1, C Brady, P Faulkner 0-1; E Crowe 1-0, O Kiernan 0-2, 1tp; D McVeety, G Smith, O Brady; S McEvoy, P Lynch 0-12, 2tp, 2tpf, 4f, C O'Reilly. Subs: L Fortune for Reilly 8 mins, C Madden for McEvoy 43, R O'Neill 0-1 for O Brady 56, R Donohoe for McLoughlin 60, K Brady for O'Connell (temp) 64-66. REFEREE: J Henry (Mayo) Advertisement
Irish Times
26 minutes ago
- Irish Times
Another sunny day in Tipperary's resurgent summer as they put Galway to the sword
About 15 minutes after the final whistle the slow-moving cordon of stewards had herded the Tipperary supporters into a peninsula of ground in front of the Mackey Stand. Over the public address they had already been warned, twice, that the water sprinklers were about to be turned on. They laughed the first time; they paid no heed the second time. Nobody was in a hurry. Nobody got wet. In Tipp's resurgent summer, this was another sunny day. Getting to Croke Park is the solemn mission of every Tipp manager, but there were times in Liam Cahill's second season when it must have seemed like another galaxy. It is little more than a year since they bottomed out against Cork in Thurles, on an excruciating day when thousands of their supporters went to ground. In that time, their rehabilitation has been remarkable. When they look again, they will find kinks in this performance . Galway were so disjointed and disorientated at times that it is impossible to use them as a reliable benchmark. But Tipp were full of pace and directness in attack and bristled with energy all over the field. They won with authority. Between the league and championship, Galway had lost four games by double-figures this year, and they were only spared that indignity here with a scrappy goal in the last minute of stoppage time. Rhys Shelly put his hand to a ball that he would easily have blocked with his hurley, and Declan McLoughlin's shot staggered over Shelly's shoulder. READ MORE In the event Galway lost by eight points, just as they had done in the Leinster final. Once again, though, they had not threatened to win. In the first half, when the game was ripe for the picking, they made four or five incisions in the Tipp cover, searching for goals. But each time the final pass was misconceived or poorly executed. Kevin Cooney forced Shelly into a save that the Tipp goalie would have been mortified not to make and Brian Concanon shot wildly, on the spin, when Conor Whelan had set him up in front of goal. [ Tipperary ease into All-Ireland semi-finals with convincing win over Galway Opens in new window ] [ Inspired 14-man Dublin beat Limerick in remarkable championship shock Opens in new window ] Tipperary's Jason Forde scores a point despite Daithí Burke of Galway. Photograph: Laszlo Geczo/Inpho But when the goal they so badly needed finally arrived they did nothing with it. Five minutes into the second half Colm Molloy squirmed along the endline and beat Shelly with a fierce diagonal shot, reducing Tipp's lead to just two points. Playing with the breeze, the game was there to be seized. Tipperary grabbed it. The outstanding Andrew Ormond scored immediately from the puck-out, igniting a run of five Tipp points without reply. In the same ten-minute period Galway hit five wides. For Galway, the symmetry was crippling. Liam Cahill bemoaned Tipp's efficiency afterwards. Between play and dead balls they had a staggering 51 shots at the target operating at a 57 per cent conversion rate. In Cahill's estimation, '10 or 15' shots had been the wrong decision. To beat Kilkenny in an All-Ireland semi-final, they will need to add the guts of 10 percentage points to that number. 'We'll look at that and we'll see, but that's a very interesting stat,' said Cahill. 'Our shots off are important. Every team is chasing it now because you have to be in the 30-point bracket or the 2-25, 3-25 to have any chance of winning an All-Ireland.' Their potential for heavy scoring is obvious. In the first half, especially, Galway couldn't lay a glove on the Tipp forwards. By the break, only Darragh McCarthy had failed to score from play: the other five had scored 13 points; Jake Morris, John McGrath, Ormond and Sam O'Farrell had combined for seven assists too. Oisín O'Donoghue's introduction proves inspired, with the Tipperary full-forward finding the back of the net after an expansive attack that tears Galway apart 📺 📱 Updates - — The Sunday Game (@TheSundayGame) The difference between the forward lines was cohesion. The Tipp forwards moved in harmony and found each other with instant passes. Time and again, one of their shooters was isolated in a pocket of space. Every invitation to shoot was accepted. At the other end, very little of Galway's play was economical. They finished the game with 16 wides and half a dozen unrealised goal chances. Too often, they looked for an extra pass. After the Leinster final, Micheál Donoghue was adamant that Galway had not played the way they had planned, and that was surely the case again. After Henry Shefflin's three years in charge, this Galway team urgently needed an identity and a sustainable way of playing. This season, they never reached those goals. Just eight of Galway's scores came from play and they coughed up 1-14 from turnovers. In a knock-out game, against a team from their peer group, all of that was unbearable. 'Look today is raw,' said Donoghue. 'Today will hurt. In terms of where we are, where they came from last year, today might not be the right day to say it is a step forward [but] I think we have made a step forward. There are huge learnings to take from the season. We will reflect on that and regroup again.' Maybe they have bottomed out. Tipp know how that feels. They made a new start.
Irish Daily Mirror
33 minutes ago
- Irish Daily Mirror
JP McManus consoles Limerick players on pitch following shock Dublin loss
Limerick billionaire JP McManus was on the field of play as he met some of the dejected players following their shock All-Ireland quarter-final loss. Still All-Ireland favourites coming into the game, it looked like it would be a walk in the park for Limerick, with Dublin's captain Chris Crummey sent off in the opening 15 minutes. From there, Dublin battled to produce possibly the greatest shock in hurling history to win the quarter-final clash by three points and punch their ticket to the All-Ireland semi-final. McManus, who has been a long-time supporter of Limerick GAA, joined the players on the pitch afterwards as they licked their wounds after a loss and it is the first time since 2018 that Limerick will not compete in the All-Ireland semi-finals. "Losing is losing on my side, I can tell you," Limerick boss John Kiely said after the match. "It all hurts and it will hurt as much as it did last year. We wanted our season to continue, we wanted to be back in training next week and it's over now, that's it. "And that's sport, that's the competition. It's disappointing but it's the reality, we wish Dublin the very best of luck as they go forward now. That's it, we're done. "Dublin deserve great credit for their performance, to win that game with 14 men for such a long period of time is a fantastic achievement for them. "Things stuck for them today, when they went to catch a ball, it stuck, they were really good on restarts, ours and theirs, breaking ball was a real strength of theirs today, they were really, really good on the breaking ball. "And whenever they got the chance to go for goals, they were very accurate and they gave themselves a chance to win the game. When the opportunity to win the game came in the last 10 minutes, they seized those opportunities."
