NORTH-EAST ALLIANCE AT NEWMACHAR

YEATS FINISHES IN DARKNESS
TO WIN BY TWO STROKES
WITH ONE-UNDER 71

By COLIN FARQUHARSON (Colin@scottishgolfview.com)

The last hour or two of today's North-east Golfers' Alliance meeting at Newmachar Hawkshill were a golf writers' nightmare.
Everytime there was a new leader, yours truly would scrap his earlier story and write a new one.
And in the closing stages the lead changed hands not once, not twice but FOUR times!
The Hawkshill course was very wet for everyone but for the morning starters who had it wet underfoot and wet from the skies, conditions were all against good scoring -- and it showed.
For most of the afternoon, you could count the players who had broken 80 on the fingers of one hand.
They were led for a long, long time by Colin Nelson, the pro at what used to be Ian Smith's Golf Shop at Hazlehead but now operating under the name of the MacKenzie Club, thanks to Brian Hendry who took over the lease and we all know Brian's aspiratations vis a vis Hazlehead, designed in the mid-1920s by Alastair MacKenzie.
Colin's 75 included double bogeys at the ninth and 13th but it looked for a long time as if that was going to be the lowest score from a field of 99 - the highest so far of the autumn-winter-spring North-east circuit.
Then, eventually, Terry Mathieson (Murcar Links) came in to dislodge Colin with a 74. Terry has been right out of sorts on the golf course for many weeks but this was more like the man who reached the final of the Scottish mid-amateur during the summer.
Even so, Terry was not very pleased about finishing bogey-bogey with three putts on the both the 17th and 18th greens after underclubbing his approaches to both and leaving himself a long way from the flag.
Still, for the next hour or so Terry Mathieson looked like being the winner. Darkness was beginning to creep in, if anything a wee bit faster than that - and there were still some 20 players out there. No way they could finish in daylight, let alone return good scores ... or so secretary Ron Menzies and myself thought.
How wrong could we be!
Out of the almost pitch-black light/night stepped Kemnay club pro Ronnie McDonald with a 73.
As his golfing buddie Bill Urquhart said, "It was a terrific score considering he was playing blind man's buff over the last few holes ... couldn't see a thing."
So no wonder Ronnie bogeyed the 16th and 17th. Thank goodness for the birdies at the seventh, ninth and the 14th.
Ronnie, incidentally, will miss next week's Alliance meeting -- hopefully Turriff will be dry enough for play - because he is returning to the Algarve to compete in the European Seniors Tour Qualifying School. He missed out on a card by a single shot last year so good luck this time, Ronnie, from all your North-east Alliance colleagues.
So, it's after 5pm and surely we can declare Ronnie McDonald the winner? Still some guys out there in the total darkness, trying to play golf.
And, what do you know, one of them was going to top Ronnie's round by two strokes with a one-under-par 71!
Step forward, Dean Yeats, playing over his home course, and the local hero, although probably not to Ronnie McDonald!
Yeats, 19, who lost to Scott Hendry in the 2004 Scottish boys' championship final, used his local knowledge to the full to play the last few holes from memory because he certainly not have been able to see where he or his ball was going.
Astonishingly, Dean, pictured above right, was able to birdie the 14th and 17th before bogeying the 18th with three putts.
“I could hardly see where the flag was for my first putt,” said Dean who came home from the University of Kentucky earlier this year after only four days of a potential four-year golf scholarship.
“I didn’t like it all. I never got a chance to play golf in the short time I was there.”
Yeats reached the turn in 37 with eight pars and a bogey at the seventh. Then he birdied the 10th as the light began to fade fast.
On a very wet course, there were 27 No Returns from a field of 99.
Leading scores (par 72)
SCRATCH
71 D Yeats (Newmachar).
73 R McDonald (Kemnay).
74 T Mathieson (Murcar Links).
75 C Nelson (MacKenzie Club), D Corkey (East Aberdeenshire).
76 I Buchan (Craibstone), G Forbes (Murcar Links), S Pert (Huntly).
77 R L Nicoll (Murcar Links), R Hyland (Newmachar), S Finnie (Caledonian), G Ingram (Inverurie).
78 I Bratton (Newburgh), D Garrett (Huntly).
80 G Esson (Portlethen), B Ritchie (Inverallochy).
81 A Grant (Portlethen), C Duffus (Kemnay).
82 A Campbell (Deeside), A K Pirie (Hazlehead), N Reid (Deeside).
83 C Cassie (Nigg Bay), S Davidson (Banchory), A Graham (Portlethen), C Alexander (Murcar Links), R Penny (Portlethen)..
84 C Carnegie (Kemnay), D Wilson (Duff House Royal), S Troup (King’s Links).
85 K Smith (Aboyne), K Minty (Turriff).
86 S Kidd (Newburgh), S Florence (Oldmeldrum), F G Gray (Deeside), F Bisset (Banchory), D McKay (Caledonian).
87 J M Hamilton (Murcar Links), N Williamson (Banchory), G Allan (Newmachar), S Fraser (Northern).
88 G Grimmer (Nigg Bay), F Barclay (Kintore), B Harper (Newburgh), H McNaughton (Cruden Bay), D Nelson (Aboyne).
89 I Welsh (Nigg Bay), I D Smith (Hazlehead).
HANDICAP
Class 1 – D Yeats (Newmachar) (+1), R L Nicoll (Murcar Links) (5) 72; D Corkey (East Aberdeenshire) (2), S Pert (Huntly) (3), G Ingram (Inverurie) (4) 73; A Grant (Portlethen) (7) 74; C Cassie (Nigg Bay) (8) 75; T Mathieson (Murcar Links) (+2), D Garrett (Huntly) (2), C Duffus (Kemnay) (5) 76; S Finnie (Caledonian) 9scr), K Smith (Aboyne) (8), K Minty (Turriff) (8) 77.
Class 2 – S Florence (Oldmeldrum) (11) 75; G Travis (Auchmill) (15) 77; H McNaughton (Cruden Bay) (10)), G Homer (Lumphanan) (12) 78; W McBain (Turriff) (13) 79; C Telford (Banchory) (13) 81; D Wood (Newburgh) (14) 83; K Duncan (Cruden Bay) (12), J Jessiman (Oldmeldrum) (14) 84.

LEADING SCORECARDS

NEWMACHAR HAWKSHILLL PAR 72
OUT: 4-5-4-4-4-3-4-5-3-36
IN: 4-4-4-4-4-3-5-4-4-36

DEAN YEATS 71
OUT: 4-5-4-4-4-4-5-5-3-37
IN: 3-4-4-4-3-3-5-3-5-34

RONNIE McDONALD 73
OUT: 4-5-4-4-4-3-3-5-2-34
IN: 5-4-5-4-3-3-6-5-4-39

TERRY MATHIESON 74
OUT: 5-5-3-4-5-3-5-4-3-37
IN: 4-4-4-4-4-3-4-5-5-37

COLIN NELSON 75
OUT: 4-5-3-4-4-2-4-5-5-36
IN: 4-4-5-6-4-3-5-4-4-39

DAVID CORKEY 75
OUT: 4-4-4-4-6-3-5-4-4-39
IN: 4-5-4-4-4-3-4-4-4-36

IAIN BUCHAN 76
OUT: 4-5-4-4-4-4-4-7-4-40
IN: 4-4-4-4-4-3-5-4-4-36

GARY FORBES 76
OUT: 4-5-4-6-4-3-4-4-4-38
IN: 4-4-4-5-4-3-5-4-4-38

STUART PERT 76
OUT: 5-6-4-5-4-3-4-5-4-40
IN: 5-4-5-3-5-3-3-4-4-36

Other halves:

BOB NICOLL 77 (36-41)
RICHARD HYLAND 77 (38-39)
STEWART FINNIE 77 (38-39)
DON GARRETT 78 (39-39).
IAN BRATTON 78 (40-38).