Cathal Simpson takes the World No.1 Course in his stride!

After winning a Darren Clarke Golf School Qualifier back on February 11th, second year Full Time student Cathal Simpson was awarded the opportunity to play last year’s Irish Open venue and recently announced the World No.1 golf course, Royal County Down. Cathal's only previous visit to Royal County Down was last year when the DCGS took the students down to do some volunteering work for the week at the 2015 Dubai Duty Free Irish Open. It is fair to say Cathal was extremely pleased to have been given this unique opportunity to play in his first Pro-Am with Coach Stuart Bickerstaff on such as prestigious golf course. A Pro-Am which did in fact include European Tour players Simon Thornton and Damian Mooney. He was certainly looking forward to getting out onto the fairways and experiencing it for himself.

With such a huge build up of excitement and anxiousness to get going it would have been easy for Cathal to slip under the radar. However once again he did not disappoint. Cathal blew away the rest of the field of 34 players to shoot an impressive net 73 in what would be described as very windy conditions on the day.

A very solid opening start paring the opening 2 holes helped to settle the nerves and enjoy his golf. It was to be much the same for the remainder of the front nine with a very solid 3 over par. However Cathal was to go on and play the back nine in 1 under par net. After birdieing the 11th and 13th holes Cathal was just 1 over par going into the last 5 holes however a bogey on the difficult par 4 17th hole left Cathal finishing on 2 over par which was enough to take the victory.

What this now does for Cathal is give him tremendous confidence and self belief in himself and his golf to help him kick on and continue to develop his game as he approaches the start of the new season.

Cathal stated, 'Having the opportunity to play Royal County Down gave me great experience. Although I feel I could have played better I am delighted with the result and the victory. Having Stuart there and with his knowledge of the golf course helped me to hit shots into the correct areas of the course which is required around this very tricky golf course. I hope to once again have the opportunity to play the World No.1 course in the near future'.