McGrane Mooney and Thornton share the spoils in Portmarnock – Irish Golfer Magazine

Damien McGrane, Damian Mooney and Simon Thornton couldn’t be separated at the top of the Flogas Pro-Am in Portmarnock.

The trio each carded rounds of 68 to sit at the summit on four-under-par.

It’s back to back wins for Thornton of Spa Golf Club that included a course record 63 in Rathfarnham on Monday, while it’s a first success of the year for Mooney (Lough Erne) and McGrane (Carlow) although the latter won the PGA Southern Branch in the spring.

Thornton put on a stunning finish with one birdie and a pair of eagles on holes 15, 15 and 17 while Mooney had four birdies in a row from the 12th.

For Thornton two wins in the space of four days have him purring ahead of what will be a big year that will include a second PGA Cup appearance for Great Britain and Ireland.

The former European Tour pro will be returning to Wentworth this summer while he can also look forward to a start at the Amgen Irish Open.

“I look forward to those events now. I’m looking forward to enjoying the week with my family in Wentworth. If I play well, great, play poorly, great. When I was there before my kids were too young to remember it, but now they are old enough to appreciate it and remember it, so that was something I wanted to tick off the list before I got too old was go and play in an event where they understood and remember it.”

It was a day of low scoring in Portmarnock with eleven of the 24 professionals shooting in red figures.

There was a four way tie for fourth with Michael McDermott (Grange), David Hughes (Massereene), Tim Rice (Limerick) and Colm Moriarty (Glasson) all shooting rounds of 70.

There was also a tie at the top in the team stabelford with the teams of Damian Mooney, David Higgins and Nicky Grant sharing the spoils on eighty-nine points.