Cork and Tipperary duo tee off in the AIG Irish Women’s and Girls’ Amateur Close Championship

Douglas golfer Clodagh Coughlan sees her game trending in the right direction at the ideal time as she tees it up in the AIG Irish Women’s & Girls’ Amateur Close Championship this morning. 

80 golfers, including Tipperary's Caitlin Shippam and the Cork golfer, will take to the Roscommon parkland course with two rounds of stroke play qualifying and four rounds of match play lying ahead before champions are crowned on Friday evening. 

Competition is set to be even tougher this year with a reduced field of just the top-12 qualifiers advancing to the AIG Close Championship match play rounds while the next 16 best scores will compete for the Amateur Plate but even with a change in format for this year’s event, Coughlan is relishing the challenge. 

“It’s the way it has always been, you qualify as best you can and then you get into the match play, and that’s the beauty of the competition, once you qualify anything can happen in match play and that’s why everyone loves it. There’s always a great field, there’s always a great atmosphere,” said Coughlan. 

“Regardless of how your year goes you always look forward to playing, well I do anyway, always look forward to playing in the Close and the stroke play. It is a good week and I’m looking forward to it.” 

The Cork native is keeping her expectations low following a missed championship cut in 2023 and an “up and down” 2024 season but following recent Interprovincial success with Munster and an AIG Muster East Women’s Senior Cup title playing for her beloved Douglas, the positives are pushing Coughlan forward. 

“They say that you learn a lot more from bad golf than good golf, you learn from your mistakes, so I’ve definitely learned a lot from last year even just by that hole or two that caught me out,” said Coughlan. 

“You can go around saying that I’m having a bad year but at the same time I’m learning from it so it’s not all bad, there’s a lot of positivity in there as well and that’s what’s driving me on to next week as well. Just hit fairways, hit greens and stick to our pre shot routine and at the end of the day we’ll see what happens then when the ball drops in the hole.” 

The AIG Irish Women’s & Girls’ Amateur Close Championship gets underway at 8am tomorrow with Ellen O’Shaughnessy (Co Louth) and Molly Campbell (Hollinwell) the early morning starters. 

Coughlan begins her tournament at 10.28am teeing it up alongside Royal Portrush’s Hannah Lee-McNamara and Munster teammate Caitlin Shippam (Ballykisteen). 

“I’ll stick to my plan and try to hit the fairways and hit greens and put myself in as good a position as I can and hopefully, we’ll qualify for the championship,” said Coughlan. 

“That’s going to be the aim is to get the top 12 but you know it’s down to me to do it, it’s down to the shots that I pull out of the bag, so we’ll see how it goes” 

Follow all the action here