John Ross Crangle has achieved royally in Pitch and Putt, internationally and domestically. Another title can now be added to his impressive resumé - the new French International Pairs. JR teamed-up with his good friend Keith Redmond. Here's JR's take on his latest success.

 

 

We had planned earlier in the year to play in the Catalan Pairs in Sant Cebria, Keith messaged me about this then too, we looked up the course and their website and were entrigued by it and with the dates, it kind of came together and Keith looked after the rest! 

 

 

We weren't too sure to be honest, we know a few of the Glenville lads go to Galicia each year and the Catalan Pairs is usually a big crowd but only when we we seen the entry online, we were the only Irish pairing.

 

 

Without doubt, one of the best I've played internationally. They have a great variety of shots and the greens are huge, the pi placements can have a huge impact on you're shot and distance was tricky to get used too. The course itself is only 3yrs old but you would never think it.

 

 

It was a little different as I hadn't played in a pairs event in years, to be honest, outside full team events. The atmosphere was a lot more relaxed until we made our way to the course, then we struggled early on.

 

 

We were a little disappointed but we birdied two of our last three holes so despite being behind by four, we definitely didn't feel out of it and had some momentum. It's definitely a different format on the larger courses where breaking 50 is a good score.

 

 

I'd watched a few of the players playing in Lucan at the European Team Championship, with some very good scores there too, so we were expecting good scoring, especially as a lot of the players are really good golfers. 

 

 

We took it easy after play on Saturday, just chilled in our apartment and relaxed for the night. We spent a bit of time trying to figure out what a Chapman Foursomes was for most of the night!

 

 

We had a really good start with birdies on 4 of our first 5 holes, from 6 to 9, they are some of the toughest holes on the course which we parred through before we came to a little stretch of Irish style holes, at that stage we knew we were still level with the leaders, we had heard a couple of roars and a hole in one ahead but we answered them with one of our own on the 12th which kind of took the pressure off and we each made really good puts on 14 & 15 to go -6 for 6 in that stretch before cruising home.

 

 

I always love playing for Dublin, we have a great team there and before we'd be hoping going into an Inter County but now we believe we can win them and when we don't, are at minimum challenging for a medal which we wanted to keep our consistent run of placings going.

 

 

First off, another Pairs win would be nice in Catalonia as this has become the Premier International event in this format. Personally, despite team success, I've never won a International title individually outside matchplay pre tournament competitions (which are great by the way!). Would be nice to pick one of them up.

 

 

I certainly hope to be, as long as I'm injury free, I'd love to make the trip as we were made very welcome in La Rochelle and if not there, we'll definitely make the effort to return