{"id":544962,"date":"2026-07-11T20:26:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T20:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/544962\/"},"modified":"2026-07-11T20:26:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T20:26:08","slug":"ireland-win-european-amateur-team-championships-for-first-time-since-2008-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/544962\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland win European Amateur Team Championships for first time since 2008 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Roscommon golfer Thomas Higgins holed the crucial putt as Ireland<\/a> won the European Amateur Team Championships for the first time since 2008 against hosts Estonia.<\/p>\n

The 23-year-old sank a 20-foot putt on the 20th hole with the match tied at 3-3, winning his match against Kevin Christopher Jegers.<\/p>\n

Amateur champion Stuart Grehan (Co Louth), and Matt McClean (Malone) also won their singles matches, following a morning foursomes victory for McClean and Caolan Rafferty (Dundalk).<\/p>\n

And although he put his tee shot into the water, Higgins recovered brilliantly against Kevin Christopher Jegers, to seal a famous win for Damien Coyne\u2019s side.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was one of the best feelings ever,\u201d said Ireland captain Coyne.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been phenomenal these last few weeks. Stuart has had an exceptional time, I said it to him coming up the ninth hole today, he was that good, if he brings that form into next week he will compete. He is going to go to Birkdale tomorrow on a real high.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd to David Howard as well, it\u2019s great to have two Irish amateurs in the field, and we will be all shouting for them. Hopefully they can continue on this great run of form we have been in.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is the first time Ireland have won this crown in 18 years when Shane Lowry was part of that side, a year after Rory McIlroy also helped them to European gold.<\/p>\n

Ireland made a blistering start to this final, with McClean and Rafferty racing into an early lead against Jegers and Markus Varjun. That led to a comprehensive 4&3 win.<\/p>\n

Grehan and John Doyle (Fota Island) also wrestled the advantage early against Mattias Varjun and Johan Ralf Kivi but there was a late comeback and Estonia took the second of the morning foursomes.<\/p>\n

It was finely poised going into the afternoon singles before Grehan emphatically dispatched leading Estonia hopeful, Richard Teder, 5&4 in the first match. It was a huge boost for the Irish and McClean followed up with a 2&1 win over Markus Varjun.<\/p>\n

Estonia had got their first point on the board through Carl Hellat at the expense of Gavin Tiernan. And while Rafferty took Mattias Varjun to extra holes, he lost out on the 20th. It all resulted in a tense final few holes but Higgins held his nerve for victory.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Korea\u2019s Haeran Ryu almost shot the first Major 59 on the men\u2019s or women\u2019s games after a blistering 60 to surge into a three-stroke lead at the 54-hole mark at the Evian Championship in France.<\/p>\n

Ryu won the third Major of the year \u2013 the 2026 KPMG Women\u2019s PGA Championship \u2013 just two weeks ago and is in pole position to claim back-to-back Major titles.<\/p>\n

Ryu made birdies on the seventh and ninth hole to make the turn in -6 and added another on 10 before back-to-back birdies on 14 and 15.<\/p>\n

With 59 watch on, the Major winner rolled in another birdie on the 17th and all eyes turned to 18 where she left her eagle putt just short for a tap-in birdie to seal a round of 60 (-11) \u2013 the lowest in Major history.<\/p>\n

Ryu also equalled the 54-hole scoring record of 194 (-19) set by In Gee Chun in 2016 and sits at the top of the leaderboard on 19-under-par.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Roscommon golfer Thomas Higgins holed the crucial putt as Ireland won the European Amateur Team Championships for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":544963,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[35197,61,60,231158,43],"class_list":["post-544962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-golf-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-lpga-tour","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544962","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=544962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544962\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/544963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=544962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=544962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=544962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}