Fahey sprints to victory at Bunclody

A sizzling 66 from Kenny Fahey at Bunclody yesterday matched the scorching summer sun during the fifth round in the Etihad PGA Sprint series and earned him top of the leaderboard but only by a slim margin.

Fahey had just one shot to spare over John Kelly and Tim Rice but the winner’s performance was quite extraordinary.

He began his birdie barrage at the long first hole where he pencilled in a four and then made back-to-back birdies at the par four fourth and short fifth holes. The rampage continued as the man from the GUI National Academy strung together five more birdies in-a-row from the seventh green.

There he made his second two of the round, then reduced the long eighth hole to four blows before gluing together a hat-trick of birdie threes that left him eight-under-par standing on the 12th tee.

However, Fahey’s fabulous form took a nose dive as the run was halted when he bogeyed the 15th and 16th hoes before finishing with two pars for his 66. Six birdies on the front nine left him out in six-under-31 and he returned home in level par 35.

Unattached Tim Rice matched the winner’s eight birdies but had three bogeys while John Kelly (St Margaret’s) carded seven birdies and two bogeys.