Caolan Rafferty

Caolan Raffety finished best of the Irish at the French Amateur Championship in Chantilly over the weekend.

Rafferty ended up tied for 16^th place on two over par, which was seven shots behind the winner Hubert Tisserand of France.

A disappointing opening round of 74 during which he played well but failed to get any sort of breaks left Rafferty in 61^st place on three over and in real danger of missing the cut which was confined to the top 40 players.

However, he rallied brilliantly in Saturday’s second round and jumped 36 places up the leaderboard after a two under par round of 69 which featured four birdies and an eagle three at the par five ninth.

The third and fourth rounds were played on Sunday and after a one over par round of 72 in the morning which left him in 24^th place, Rafferty moved up eight places in the afternoon as he birdied two of the final three holes to finish on level par for the round.

The Dundalk player will be action nearer to home this weekend as he tees it up in the East of Ireland at Baltray before heading to Scotland for the St Andrews Trophy.