Stuart Manley saw a 12 foot putt on the last hole sail just wide of the mark to end his hopes of forcing a play-off with Calum Hill in the North Ireland Open at Galgorm Castle.

Having led after the first round with a superb seven under par round of 64, the 39-year-old was hoping to notch his second win of the year on the European Challenge Tour.

He stayed in contention throughout, but needed a birdie on the 72nd hole to reach -19 to make Scottish rival Hill play on.

Manley went into the event sitting in sixth place on the Road to Ras Al Khaimah and was hoping to clinch the win that would once again secure his European Tour Card. That is more or less secured now, but he will want to take his recent run of good form into the Rolex Trophy in Geneva this week.

His win this year came at the Hauts de France Golf Open in June and the runners-up spot he shared with another Scotsman, Scott Henry, was his third top-five finish this summer.

It also moved him up to fourth on the Challenge Tour rankings and earned him 16,200 Euros in prize money to take his year’s earnings to 95,649 Euros.

“It has been a very successful and consistent season so far. It would have been great to get the job done last week and secure my card for next year, but hopefully I can get a couple more big finishes,” said Manley.

“I wasn’t even sure if I was going to be able to play on the opening day at Galgorm because I’d been struggling with my neck. Credit to the European Tour’s physio team as without them I wouldn’t have been able to play for sure.”

As well as getting his neck fixed, Manley is hoping to get some work done on his putter, which is broken. Despite that he managed to pick up 23 birdies and dropped only five shots.

“I had a really good day on the greens in the opening round – even though my putter is actually broken at the moment! It’s going to be fixed next week but I am definitely panicking a bit as it has been red hot all year,” admitted Manley.

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