Holywood Golf Club will play host to the Irish U14 & U16 Boys’ Amateur Open Championship this week as some of the brightest young talents descend on the home club of career Grand Slam winner Rory McIlroy.
A field of 144 players from across Ireland, Europe and as far away as Dubai will tee it up at the County Down venue for the 54-hole Stroke Play event, with a host of talented youngsters aiming to add their names to the roll of honour.
The field includes reigning U14 champion Eduardo de la Macorra (Guadalhorce), Ulster U16 champion Ethan Edwards (Dun Laoghaire), Munster U16 champion Justin Dennehy (Douglas) and Leinster U16 champion Sean Sheeran (Kilkenny).
Head PGA Professional at Holywood, Ciaran Lavery, is looking forward to an exciting week ahead and the prospect of seeing some up and coming stars compete around the famous parkland course.
“We have the Rory factor here,” said Lavery.
“Everyone is coming along hoping to follow in his footsteps so we are interested to host them and see what they can do around here and see how good their own golf is.”
Holywood will be represented by two players this week, with Ruben O’Hare and Henry Campbell both set to compete with home advantage on their side.
O’Hare will challenge for the U14 prize, while Campbell, who is part of the Golf Ireland U16 High Performance panel, will look to take another step forward in his amateur career when he competes for the U16 crown.
“Henry is on the Irish setup, so he is one of our main hopes of following Rory at the minute,” said Lavery.
“We are really excited for him. He’s posted a few good numbers lately, so we are expecting big things this week.”
Having made his own journey into professional golf, Lavery knows the demands young players face as they look to reach the highest levels of the game. With over 100 competitors carrying ambitions of making their mark in golf, his advice is to keep the love of the game strong.
“The best piece of advice I could give them is to keep the enjoyment,” said Lavery.
“Don’t let it derail your love of the game. It’s one of the things I would see the most out of the young fellas that would come through. There’s a lot of pressure on them and they get away from it a wee bit, they maybe think that it’s not for them, but if you can keep the love of it up you’ll play for the rest of your life.”
The Holywood challenge begins at 8.00am as O’Hare is among the players to lead out the field from the 10th tee, while Campbell will be part of the afternoon wave when he tees off alongside Jaxon Wardlow (Belvoir Park) and Caelan Dhami (Walton Heath) at 2.10pm.
Seeing a local winner would be the icing on the cake of what promises to be an exciting week at Holywood.
“It would be brilliant,” said Lavery.
“It would be great to see one of the lads do really well and keep it here, it would be well celebrated. There’s a lot of emphasis on the juniors in the club here, so to see all the hard work that goes on in the background pay off and for one of the lads to come up trumps would be brilliant.”
The Irish U14 & U16 Boys’ Amateur Open Championship begins at 8.00am on Tuesday under a two-tee start, with Callum Mahon (Antrim), Ewan Finlayson (Portadown) and Leo Tunney (Maison Blanche) getting proceedings underway from the first tee, while Oliver Bearpark (Killiney), Harry Crowe (Dunmurry) and O’Hare begin from the 10th.
