Galway pitch & putt team claims silver at Leinster finals

The city club, situated at the back of the Army Barracks in Renmore, was established in 1966, and has enjoyed success at national level many times, but it’s been a long time since those heady days.

While other counties are made up of players from clubs all over the county, Mellows is a bit of an outlier. Galway once had up to eight pitch & putt clubs, but now, Mellows is the only 18-hole affiliated club left in existence in Connacht, and as a result, the club plies its trade in Leinster.

Earlier this year the two-man team of James McLoughlin and Nicky Furey won the Leinster Non-Mixed Foursomes, followed by Carly Wiebe coming third at the Leinster Junior Ladies Strokeplay; James Fleming finishing second in the Leinster Intermediate Strokeplay; while recently there was the impressive performance by James Mcloughlin at Laytown Pitch and Putt, taking the Leinster Senior Strokeplay Championship on a sore of 35-under for 54 holes.

The two six-man teams - intermediate and junior - arrived at Glenville in an optimistic mood. The Intermediate team has done well in this competition in the past without getting into the frame. The team this year was made up of James Fleming, Tony O’Connor, Donal Tarpey, Kevin Walsh, Allan O’Keeffe, and James McLoughlin; while the Junior team was made up of Nicky Furey, Patrick Ward, Darragh Conroy, Ger Abberton, Sean Masterson and Michael O’Neil.

The Junior lads had a good Scotch Foursomes and played well in the singles with the standout score of level par by Michael O’Neil, finishing in 7th position, just seven shots off third place.

After the Intermediate Scotch Foursomes, the Galway team were on 4-under, a decent score considering how difficult a format it is and saw the team in the top half of the table of 10 teams.

The singles were kicked off by McLoughlin in an effort to get a strong score on the board early, and he posted 2-under, followed by Fleming on 5-over and Tarpey on 1-under.

At that stage, the Galway team were in the top five with Meath, Dublin, Kilkenny and Kildare, the last three players on the Galway team would determine the placings.

Walsh posted an impressive 2-under followed by O’Keeffe with a brilliant score of 4-under. The anchor player of the group was O’Connor, he returned a score of 5-over which was enough to secure the Galway team their first intercounty team medals in many years. Meath were triumphant with an overall team score of 9-under, with Galway in 2nd place on 3-under, and Dublin in third on 1-over par.

“That’s twelve Leinster medals we’ve brought back across the Shannon this year in the various competitions, an unbelievable achievement by Galway and Mellows Pitch and Putt," said team captain, James McLoughlin.

Mellows chairman Frank Naughton said all at the club were proud of the achievement of the club and its members in the past year.

“Myself, our club members and our committee members are so proud of our players, all the work we do here at the club, on the course, on the clubhouse, on the admin side, is all in an effort to grow our amazing game, not only at local level, but at national level.

"The results this season are showing the club's commitment to this end, that coupled with the financial support required to bring these ambitions to fruition, and the commitment by the players, its surely a recipe for success going forward into the future," he said.

This intermediate team now go forward to compete in The 2026 National Intermediate Shield, which is being held at Navan Pitch & Putt club next Saturday and Sunday, September 12 and 13, where the top two teams from Leinster and Munster will fight it out for the title.