Photograph of the winner Brian Long receiving the Travellers' Trophy at the completion of the 34th Tour from Mr P C Duffy, sponsor. Also in the photograph are Gary Lecky who finished in second place, Willie Barrett, Tour Official and Karl Doherty on the right who finished third.

The 34th Travellers Trophy tour held in Majorca lived up to all expectations as a tightly fought competition ensued among the 40 golfers from around the North West who travelled to the island.

Stage set after three days

After the third day of competition on the Poniente course, it became clear that the winner would inevitably emerge from one of the last four-ball leaders from the City of Derry Club.

Playing consistently over the first three days, Sean McKane [20] with a first place on Tuesday on the tough Santa Ponsa course with 35 points and a third place finish at Poniente with 40 points led the field with 110 points by just one from Gary Leckey [11] who had won on day one at Poniente with 41 points and maintained a strong challenge by scoring well over the next two days.

However, with only three points adrift of the leader McKane after the first three rounds, Brian Long [6] with a top three finish on the first two days [ 2nd with 37 points at Poniente and 3rd with 32 points at Santa Ponsa] remained in strong contention with 107 points. Karl Doherty [16] had won with a great score of 42 points on day three, but lying 8 points behind leader McKane, there was probably too much ground for him to make up to lift the coveted Travellers Trophy.

The Final Day at Santa Ponsa

The final day at Santa Ponsa began interestingly enough with both Long and McKane posting bogie scores at the first hole, while Leckey put great pressure on himself by blanking the hole and never really got back into the match throughout the remainder of the first nine holes. McKane did however maintain his lead with some fine golf up to the fifth hole, but an out of bounds at the sixth, even though he birdied with the second ball saw the overall match level. Long by this time had birdied the fifth and sixth holes and had with a level gross score over the first nine holes established a 3-stroke lead over McKane who critically failed to score at either the very difficult 8th and 9th holes. He slid back further with a double bogey at the 10th while Long recorded a bogey at this one of the longest par fives in Europe at 560 metres of the yellow markers. Leckey after 9 holes had slipped from contention and Doherty had begun to catch up with overnight leader McKane as the back 9 progressed through the 12th hole.

Long, playing some of the finest golf ever seen on this tour on this very difficult Santa Ponsa course, had with three further pars through 11 to 13 established a lead of 6 over his nearest rival which was most unlikely to be seriously challenged by any of the three who had at the beginning of the final day had a prospect of winning. McKane and Leckey had continued to struggle after the turn and Doherty playing steadily enough always had too much to do from the starting position to make a serious challenge.

Long, despite dropping shots at the difficult 14th, at the tricky 15th and at the long 16th posted two good pars over the last two holes to romp to victory by 10 shots. He recorded a massive total of 145 points for the week and with 38 points [4 over gross] on this final day had also won the day prize as well as lifting the Travellers Trophy from its original sponsor and winner in 1978, Mr P C Duffy, for the first time after some 15 years of touring. Gary Lecky finished the tour in second place with 135 points, while Karl Doherty made enough ground over the final day to score 132 points, one ahead of fourth-placed finisher Sean McKane who had led at the beginning of the day.

Team Competition

After a poor start on Day 1 of the team competition, Mark O’Doherty’s team of himself, North West’s Vice-Captain Pat Mackey, Karl Doherty and Maurice Quigg excelled over the last three days to win with 331 points, 3 points ahead of the team led by Brian Long and with Cahir MeGeady, City of Derry Vice-Captain Michael McCullough and rookie Jack Johnstone in support. The third team finishing quartet with 326 points was led by North West’s Frankie Friel, ably supported by Greencastle Club Captain and tour rookie, Hugh Casey, Tour Organiser Andy Meenagh and the third tour rookie this year, Trevor Finlay from the Newtownstewart Club.


Tour Dinner and Presentation of Prizes

This will take place at the City of Derry Golf Club on Saturday 4th June at 8.30 p m. All of the tour party are invited to attend.

A A Meenagh
Tournament Organiser
22nd May 2011

Tel: 07836327968 [Mobile]

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