Golf: Maiden Tour Victory for Colm Moriarty

Golf: Maiden Tour Victory for Colm Moriarty

Colm Moriarty had his maiden victory on the European Challenge Tour yesterday at the FirstPlus Wales Challenge. Colm carded a final round of 70 to take the title and the first prize of €20,800 that allowed him make a massive leap of 142 places from 176th to 34th on the European Challenge Tour Rankings.

The 28 year old eased his way to victory with a nerveless final round of 70 for a 13 under par 203 winning total at the Vale Golf and Spa Resort on the outskirts of Cardiff, beating the new leader of the Challenge Tour Rankings Felipe Aguilar of Chile.

Colm said after his great win “I am delighted, I did’nt have a category on the Challenge Tour at the start of the year and this just changes everything for me- you could say that it has got my career back on track. I have been playing well on the EuroPro Tour all year and felt I could win on the Challenge Tour but it’s tougher mentally on the Challenge Tour because there is more strength in depth out here. So this is a significant win for me and sets me up well for the rest of the year.”

Colm thanked everybody, including Team Ireland Golf Trust, that has worked with him. He said he owes all of them a lot. Colm’s  fellow Irishman, Gareth Maybin finished in a tie for third, five strokes behind. Both Gareth and Colm now head home to spearhead the Irish Challenge at the Challenge of Ireland at The Glasson Golf Hotel & Country Club (Colm’s home course), which tees off on Thursday.

Both Moriarty and Maybin are supported by Team Ireland Golf Trust. In 2007, Moriarty received an allocation of €15,000 and Maybin an allocation of €10,000 from the Trust.
The Team Ireland Golf Trust is a public private partnership designed to provide support, both financial and non-financial, to emerging Irish professional golfers to help them realise their potential on the world stage. Golfers on the scheme have access to the sports science and medicine network already provided by the Irish Sports Council to high performance athletes on the International Carding Scheme. Access to these services is administered by the National Coaching and Training Centre in Limerick.
Since 2006 golfers supported by the Trust are able to freely access the Golfing Union of Ireland’s new National Academy facilities at Carton Demesne in Maynooth, Co. Kildare.