Fair Play award for Ardglass star Cormac Sharvin

Cormac Sharvin. Picture via Daily Record/Stirling Observer

Irish Amateur Close champion Cormac Sharvin has received a fair play award for his honesty on the golf course.

Donald Morton reports in the Scottish Daily Record that the Stirling University student has been recognised "for his fantastic sportsmanship" and awarded the Enno Harms Fair Play Award by the European University Sports Association.

It follows an exceptional piece of sportsmanship by the 21-year-old Irishman at last year’s European Universities Golf Championship in France, where Stirling successfully defended their team title.

Sharvin called a two-shot penalty on himself with three holes left to play in the 72–hole tournament in Saint-Saens, despite still being in contention for an individual medal.

Cormac said: “I’d hit my ball left and it was up against a tree at the 16th. My back was up against the tree and I was trying to knock it out.

“As I took my stroke, the club got jammed in a branch and didn’t move. I could have treated it as a practise swing but the first thing that came to my head was to say to my playing partner that I’d tried to play the shot.

“I’d just dropped out of contention for the title but it was also a team event so the impetus was still there to shoot the best I could. I ended up double-bogeying and, looking back, if I’d been a little less greedy trying to make the green, I should have knocked it side-ways like I did with my next shot.

“Obviously I would have liked to have won the tournament outright but thankfully we still won the team title. It’s nice to be recognised by EUSA for playing in the spirit of the game.”

Cormac has been invited to collect his award in Turkey this April.

Sharvin's sportsmanship was not the only act of sportsmanship by an Irish international golfer last year.

Greystones' Paul Dunne also called a shot on himself during last year's Interprovincial Matches

In attempting to remove a loose impediment behind his ball on the 18th, he inadvertantly pulled a blade of grass out of the ground.

He subsequently holed the putt  for what appeared to the galleries to be a win on the hole and a halved match with Munster’s Geoff Lenehan, but immediately walked over to the referee and after reporting the facts, accepted a loss of hole penalty.

Leinster ended up halving with Munster on the day and lost out to Ulster for the title the following day.