Portstewart

Thursday, Oct. 4 - Portstewart---second round of the Great North Links Challenge. The bell rang: dong or ding? The first hole at Portstewart is possibly the most scenic opening hole in the links world. A chilly but stunningly sunny day greeted us as we teed it up for our second round in the GNLC. We checked -- our opening round team score of 98 was very good, but not good enough to bring home the daily prize. Some foursome reported a team stableford score of 112 points - which left us muttering in the gorse. Undeterred, we venture out onto the course, buoyed by our decent initial effort. Our team goal once again was to register at least 90 points, an average of 30 each. Doc Healy answers the bell and is steady all day, scoring a most impressive 35 points, just missing his birdie putt on #18 after a spectacular approach. Meanwhile the remaining trio struggle mightily at different times. Considine dings his first two holes and never gets going, tallying a steady and frustrating pair of unlucky 13's on the front and back nines, for a total of 26. Farrell storms out of the gate early with nine points on his first three holes, and then possibly sets an unusual GNLC record of five straight dings. Ever the gamer, Glenn re-tees twice after lost balls to scratch out valuable points. Highlight of the day: Glenn holes out a long bunker shot on his second tee ball on the par five 14th hole for a 6-5 to notch a point! Final score = 25 points. Haggerty strikes the ball well, especially on the front nine where he posted 15 points, but is stymied on the fast and occasionaly uneven greens. Score = 28. Team score of 89 doesn't quite equal the goal of 90, but is good enough to keep us in contention going into our third and final day at the toughest and most storied venue of the tourney: Royal Portrush - site of both this year's Irish Open and Senior British Open. This is links golf at its most demanding -- lengthy with narrow fairways leading up to difficult green complexes. We need our "A" games tomorrow. We spend the night fortifying.........For our followers, we have been technically challenged to post photos (no USB cable) --- we took plenty and we will add them stateside-------please check back in a few weeks.