MURRAY'S MINT, CIARAN'S CLASS

With the course having taken such a battering from the seemingly incessant rain of recent weeks and yielding such little run as a consequence, good scores at County Armagh Golf Club are very hard-earned these days.

In such conditions, it's especially advantageous to possess the sort of animalistic hitting power that Thomas Murray has in his armoury, and indeed this proved to be the case as he took the top honours in a Club Stableford event on Saturday 16 September.

To focus solely on Murray's capacity for enormous distance would do a disservice to a deft short game that was also very much in evidence during this fantastic two-over-par outing. Thomas notched birdies at the 2nd, 7th, 10th and, most satisfyingly, the 18th, which arrested a potentially costly slide of three consecutive bogeys from the 15th to 17th. As it was, Murray's peerless 42-point return sealed a comfortable competition victory and a deserved eight-to-seven handicap reduction.

The 6th at County Armagh: an easy hole on paper; a little more tricky on grass.

Trailing Thomas by three points and occupying the Saturday runner-up berth was Ian Millar. This 11-handicapper often reserves his best golf for the weekly Wednesday Opens, but a splendid 39-point round comprising 10 pars and eight bogeys showed that he can produce the goods on any day of the week.