“I’ll have the ability to deal with it extra as a golf event than an expertise.”
This week marks the beginning of the home newbie season with 93 gamers teeing it up within the Connolly Motors-sponsored West of Eire Newbie Open qualifier at Co Sligo in the present day.
The handicap cut-off was plus 2.5 this 12 months, and the Championship correct will get underway with a 126-strong discipline set for the primary of two strokeplay qualifying rounds on Good Friday.
Greystones’ Dylan Holmes will probably be seeking to develop into the primary man to retain the title since Rory McIlroy in 2006.
Walker Cup skipper Dean Robertson will intently monitor outcomes, and the winner will probably be invited to affix a Nice Britain and Eire squad session at Lahinch later this summer season.
Robertson can even be watching Golf Eire’s pilot model of a brand new Strokes Gained Rankings system that ranks performances in Championships and scratch cups.
Launched this week in partnership with Quantum Sports activities Knowledge, the pilot will run by means of the 2026 season with a view to its introduction in 2027 as a brand new major qualification methodology for all males’s and girls’s championships.
Utilizing scoring knowledge returned to Golf Eire’s WHS Clubhouse platform, gamers will obtain an Adjusted Strokes Gained (ASG) score, which will probably be pushed by their scores over a rolling two-year interval.
ASG measures what number of strokes higher or worse a golfer performs in every spherical in comparison with a median championship-level participant, accounting for course issue and taking part in circumstances.
Walker Cup gamers Caolan Rafferty (+6.107), Stuart Grehan (+5.984), Matthew McClean (+5.088) and Gavin Tiernan (+4.890) are the highest 4 within the preliminary males’s rating.
Kate Lanigan (+10.867), Olivia Costello (+10.316), Rebekah Gardner (+9.565) and Anna Dawson (+9.538) are the main girls domestically.
“Whereas we’re dedicated to persevering with to make use of each the World Newbie Golf Rankings and the World Handicap System as qualification standards for our championships, we needed to trial a brand new major methodology of qualification for championships that was developed particularly for that function,” stated Mark Wehrly, Championships and Guidelines Director at Golf Eire.
