Irish Professional Championship 1979
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Irish Professional Championship 1979 Smithwicks Irish Professional Championship 1979 
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| Tournament type: | Non-ranking tournament |
| Attendees: | 2 |
| Venue: | Ulster Hall , Belfast |
| Opening: | March 20, 1979 |
| Endgame: | March 22, 1979
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| Defending champion: |
 Alex Higgins
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| Winner: |
Alex Higgins
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| Finalist: |
 Patsy Fagan
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| Highest Break: | 124 ( Alex Higgins )
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The 1979 Smithwicks Irish Professional Championship was a professional snooker tournament during the 1978/79 season without affecting the world rankings. The tournament was played as a challenge match from March 20-22, 1979 at Ulster Hall in Belfast , Northern Ireland . The winner was defending champion Alex Higgins , who defeated Patsy Fagan as a challenger for the second time in a row . Higgins also played the highest break of the tournament with a 124 break.
Prize money
The tournament was sponsored by the Smithwicks beer brand . The total prize pool was £ 2,000, of which £ 1,500 went to the winner and the remaining £ 500 to the loser.
The game
The Irish Professional Championship could look back on a long tradition. From the first edition in 1947, Jackie Rea dominated the tournament with only one defeat until he was replaced by Alex Higgins in 1972 . Since then, Higgins had already overcome two challenges after first Dennis Taylor and then Patsy Fagan sought the challenge last year but had no chances against the defending champions. Fagan tried again a good year after his last attempt.
The game between Higgins and Fagan took place from March 20-22 , 1979 at Belfast Ulster Hall . The referee of the game in the best of 41 frames mode was the Englishman Alf Shaw . Alex Higgins got off to a better start and took a 3-0 lead, but Fagan was able to close it to 3-2. Then Higgins built his lead to 6: 2 and 7: 4, but Fagan did not give up and was able to get back on a frame to the score of 7: 6. Now ex-world champion Higgins pushed ahead and took the lead with 11: 6 and 15: 7. Only then did Fagan have a little more success and was able to briefly prevent Higgins from expanding the lead until he was able to win three frames in a row at 17:11. Fagan was only able to shorten it to 20:12 before Higgins got the last necessary frame and won with 21:12. Higgins, who had played two Century Breaks during the game , improved his previous year's result against Fagan (21:13) by one frame less.
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Final: Best of 41 Frames Referee: Alf Shaw Ulster Hall , Belfast , Northern Ireland , March 20-22, 1979  |
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Alex Higgins
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21 : 12 |
Patsy Fagan
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112 : 14, 73 : 51, 82 : 30, 58: 84 , 60: 77 , 79 : 43, 76 : 49, 90 : 29, 27: 109 (88), 22: 90 , 96 : 29, 37: 86 , 41: 82 , 83 : 44, 98 : 30, 102 : 39, 79 : 1, 20: 65 , 79 : 20 (65), 82 : 49 (54), 100 : 34, 112 : 19 (112), 22: 80 , 122 : 1, 51: 55 , 79 : 40, 46: 60 , 56: 59 , 72 : 42, 129 : 0 (124), 107 : 7, 17: 122 , 67-47 |
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| 124 | Highest break | 88 |
| 2 | Century breaks | - |
| 4th | 50+ breaks | 1 |
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Ron Florax: 1979 Irish Professional Championship. CueTracker.net, accessed on July 16, 2020 .
- ↑ a b Chris Turner: Irish Professional Championship - Non Ranking Event open to professionals from Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland only. (No longer available online.) Chris Turner's Snooker Archive, 2008, archived from the original on April 18, 2016 ; accessed on July 16, 2020 (English).
- ^ Ron Florax: 1979 Irish Professional Championship - Finishes. CueTracker.net, accessed on July 16, 2020 .