Golf Ireland has celebrated Co Louth golfer Stuart Grehan’s stunning victory at The Amateur Championship in Royal Liverpool.<\/p>\n
The\u00a033-year-old\u00a0backed up his recent East of Ireland success with a brilliant week in\u00a0Hoylake\u00a0becoming the 131st\u00a0Amateur\u00a0Champion,\u00a0while\u00a0securing his place at this year\u2019s Open, and the Masters\u00a0and US Open in 2027.<\/p>\n
The Tullamore native came\u00a0through a\u00a0strong\u00a0field before delivering a\u00a01 hole\u00a0win over\u00a0Matt Moloney (USA)\u00a0in the final, as Grehan became\u00a0the first Irish winner\u00a0of this event since James Sugrue in 2019, with fellow Co Louth clubman Gavin Tiernan falling just short in last year\u2019s decider.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a brilliant achievement\u00a0and we are delighted\u00a0for Stuart,\u201d said Golf Ireland CEO Mark Kennelly.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Amateur Championship is one of the\u00a0biggest tests in golf, where\u00a0you\u00a0have to\u00a0come through stroke play and a full week of match play.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve\u00a0known for a long time the quality Stuart has,\u00a0as\u00a0evidenced\u00a0by his brilliant season last year and recent win in\u00a0Baltray.\u00a0To\u00a0see him deliver it on this stage is hugely rewarding for him and everyone who has worked with him along the way.<\/p>\n
\u201cStuart\u2019s success adds to Ireland\u2019s strong tradition in the amateur ranks and provides another boost\u00a0ahead of the European Team Championships.\u201d<\/p>\n
Grehan, who was crowned\u00a0Flogas\u00a0Irish Men\u2019s Amateur Open Champion and AIG Irish Men\u2019s Amateur Close Champion in last year,\u00a0showed phenomenal heart and determination throughout the 36-hole final.<\/p>\n
He went\u00a03 down after 12 holes\u00a0but\u00a0bounced back and only trailed by the minimum at\u00a0lunch.\u00a0Grehan\u00a0pushed on in the afternoon and won the first two\u00a0holes,\u00a0he had two chances to the seal the match down the closing stretch but eventually did on the 36th\u00a0and final hole.<\/p>\n
This win\u00a0marks a career-defining moment in\u00a0a Walker Cup year where that match takes place in Lahinch.<\/p>\n
\u201cI still\u00a0can\u2019t\u00a0believe\u00a0it,\u00a0I am just so relieved.\u00a0My legs were shaking coming up the 18th, just absolutely over the moon,\u201d said Grehan.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was thinking of all sorts over that first putt there but delighted just to get it done.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s\u00a0been amazing, it was boisterous out there today which was nice. It was\u00a0just amazing\u00a0to have everyone over\u00a0and to get the job done. We were\u00a0very close\u00a0last year with Gavin nearly winning as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had a reset at lunch, my coach is\u00a0actually over, Dave Ruddy, so we went to the range and talked it over. Just a couple of small bits and\u00a0I\u00a0actually played\u00a0quite well that side, I hit the ball\u00a0really well, made a few mental errors but\u00a0that\u2019s\u00a0always going to happen over 36 holes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just kept the head down, tried to stay calm, as calm as possible but\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0just over the moon.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Golf Ireland has celebrated Co Louth golfer Stuart Grehan’s stunning victory at The Amateur Championship in Royal Liverpool.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":510059,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43,178544],"class_list":["post-510058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-stuart-grehan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510058","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=510058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510058\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/510059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=510058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=510058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=510058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}