Rafferty reaches last eight in west of ireland

Caolan Rafferty's bid to win a second West of Ireland championship ended at the quarter-final stage on Eastern Monday when he was beaten by the eventual winner Mark Cadden from Roganstown.
Rafferty qualified for the matchplay stage after being tied third following a one over par 72 in the first qualifying round. Bad weather forced the postponement of the second and final qualifying round so the 64 qualifiers were decided on their first round scores with Rafferty being joined by Ben Cahill after shooting a 77 while Eoin Murphy bowed out after a nine over par 80.
In the first round of matchplay Rafferty beat Slieve Russell’s Seamus Cullen 2&1 while Cahill went down by 2&1 to The Island’s Cian Harkin. Harkin went on to reach the semi-finals where he was beaten 1up by the tournament’s runner-up Colm Campbell from Warrenpoint.
Rafferty booked his place in the last 16 with a 3&1 victory over James Hewitt from Tandragee and then made the last eight with a 3&2 win over Portmarnock’s Eoin Sullivan.
However, his hopes of winning the first major championship of the season ended at the quarter-final stage when he lost 6&5 to Cadden who never looked back after opening up an early lead.
There was good news for Rafferty afterwards as he was selected on the Ireland team for the European Nations Championship which takes place in Spain at Real Club de Golf in Sotogrande.
The Championship will be played over 72 holes as individual strokeplay over four consecutive days. After each round, the three best individual scores from each men’s team and the two best individual scores from each women’s team will count. The individual winner will be the player with the lowest aggregate scratch score.
​The other members of the Ireland team are John Doyle (Fota Island), Stuart Grehan (County Louth), Matthew McClean (Malone), Olivia Costello (Roscommon), Anna Dawson (Tramore) and Emma Fleming (Elm Park).