Fresh from his breakthrough victory at\u00a0Seapoint,\u00a0Patrick Keeling\u00a0now turns his attention to Royal Portrush\u00a0and the North of\u00a0Ireland Amateur\u00a0Open\u00a0Championship.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0Roganstown\u00a0golfer arrives\u00a0searching\u00a0for a second championship title in the space of a week after his dramatic victory\u00a0in the\u00a0Flogas\u00a0Irish Men\u2019s Amateur\u00a0Open\u00a0Championship\u00a0last Sunday.<\/p>\n
The North of Ireland returns to Portrush this year\u00a0after being\u00a0held at Portstewart in 2025, with\u00a0the field\u00a0taking on the\u00a0Valley Links\u00a0for Wednesday\u2019s opening round\u00a0before switching to the Dunluce Links for the remaining 54\u00a0holes.<\/p>\n
132 competitors will\u00a0tee it up with\u00a0Keeling\u00a0joined among the leading contenders by\u00a0West of Ireland Champion Mark Cadden (Roganstown) and\u00a0Munster Men\u2019s Stoke Play Champion Paul Coughlan (Castleknock).<\/p>\n
Keeling, who arrived back home to Ireland from college in Louisville, Kentucky last Monday, has\u00a0enjoyed\u00a0a whirlwind\u00a0few days\u00a0culminating in his\u00a0Seapoint\u00a0success.\u00a0The 12-foot birdie putt on the 18th\u00a0that\u00a0clinched the\u00a0title\u00a0capped what the Swords native described as\u00a0the \u201cbest week ever\u201d\u00a0but his\u00a0focus\u00a0has\u00a0shifted\u00a0to a championship on a course\u00a0he\u00a0loves.<\/p>\n
\u201cPortrush is my favourite course in the world,\u201d said Keeling<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve\u00a0been lucky enough to play a lot of good courses in America and around Ireland, but nothing really comes close to Portrush for me. I have special memories being up here watching Shane Lowry winning and I played the Portrush Scratch Cup here\u00a0a number of\u00a0years ago and finished second to my younger brother, but it was fun.\u201d<\/p>\n
The calmness Keeling displayed during\u00a0Sunday\u2019s final round\u00a0has been\u00a0shaped in part by a\u00a0change in perspective over the past\u00a0year,\u00a0with\u00a0his faith\u00a0becoming an important part of both his\u00a0life and golfing career.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe overall perspective of everything, realising as huge and prestigious as the Irish amateur is,\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0just a game of golf at the end of the day and\u00a0there\u2019s\u00a0a lot more important things in life.\u00a0That perspective just brought so much calmness,\u201d\u00a0said Keeling.<\/p>\n
Keeling is set to tee up alongside Evan Hogg (Belvoir Park) and former\u00a0Flogas\u00a0Irish Men\u2019s Amateur Open\u00a0champion Matthew McClean (Malone) for their opening two rounds with the trio\u00a0part of\u00a0Wednesday\u2019s afternoon\u00a0wave at 2.30pm.<\/p>\n
The 21-year-old\u00a0spoke\u00a0of how he wants to win as many championships as he can and put his name on as many trophies as\u00a0possible,\u00a0and with his next opportunity coming\u00a0so soon after his\u00a0first,\u00a0he wants to keep a similar mindset when he tees up this week.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re\u00a0always showing up saying, I would like to win. I\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0need to win, but I would\u00a0definitely like\u00a0to win and to give yourself the best chance of that is by getting into your process,\u201d said Keeling.<\/p>\n
\u201cFocusing on the things I can control, breathing, process, pre-shot routine, and then after I\u2019ve hit the shot, how can I switch off, relax my brain, conserve energy, make sure I\u2019m eating the right food, staying hydrated, getting the right sleep, putting the right food in my body, off the golf course, all that is crucial.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would love to win. That feeling is unbelievable and\u00a0we\u2019re\u00a0always striving for days like Sunday as golfers.\u201d<\/p>\n
The North of Ireland Men\u2019s Amateur Open Championship tees off at\u00a07am\u00a0on Wednesday\u00a0with\u00a0Colm Campbell\u00a0(Warrenpoint), Jack Moffett\u00a0(Fortwilliam) and\u00a0Shea Dorman\u00a0(Bangor) getting\u00a0proceedings underway.
View tee times and scoring\u00a0here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fresh from his breakthrough victory at\u00a0Seapoint,\u00a0Patrick Keeling\u00a0now turns his attention to Royal Portrush\u00a0and the North of\u00a0Ireland Amateur\u00a0Open\u00a0Championship. The\u00a0Roganstown\u00a0golfer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":445158,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43,193265,193602],"class_list":["post-445157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-north-of-ireland-amateur-championship","tag-patrick-keeling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/445158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}