Beware Scots! Ireland are on a worldwide winning roll

SATURDAY FINAL IN SLOVENIA:

IT'S SCOTLAND v IRELAND FOR

EUROPEAN SENIORS TITLE

Defending champions Scotland swept through to the final of the European senior men’s amateur team championship for the second year in a row at Bled Golf & Country Club, Slovenia today.
The Scots, the top seeds and leading qualifiers for the match-play stages, swept aside the challenge of fourth qualifiers France 4 ½- ½. It would have been a 5-0 final scoreline because John Johnston (Royal Aberdeen) was two up on Alain Coune when the Scots’ winning margin was achieved.
By tradition, in most European team championships, matches which are not finished when an overall winning score is reached are declared halved – and that’s what happened to Johnston.
Gordon MacDonald (Callander) and Donald McCart (Castlerock) played the foursomes tie and beat Jean Pierre Combart and Georeges Roumeas by one hole.
Stephen Ellis (Cowal) won the top singles by two holes against R Fontagneres.
Team skipper and Scottish seniors champion Ian Hutcheon (pictured above) won by 3 and 1 against Aubert Riviere.
Brian Grieve (King James VI) was a 3 and 2 winner over Alexis Godillot.
Scotland will play Ireland, the No 2 qualifiers, in Saturday’s final. The Irish beat England 3-2 in a tight tussle and are confident that they can put yet another victory for Ireland up on the golfing map this season.
Padraig Harrington won the Open … Ireland won the European men’s amateur team championship at Western Gailes … Arthur Pierse from Tipperary won the British senior men’s amateur championship at Nairn last week … and Danielle McVeigh from Kilkeel won the World Student Games women’s golf gold medal in Thailand earlier today.
Ireland led 1-0 from the opening foursomes against England but David Lane and Chris Reynolds made it 2-1 for England by winning the first two singles. Then Hugh Smith levelled it with a 5 and 4 win over Alan Squires.
It was all on the Douglas Arnold (England) v Tony Good (Ireland) tie after that and Goode kept his nerve to win on the 18th green.

CHAMPIONSHIP FLIGHT
SEMI-FINALS
SCOTLAND 4 1/2, FRANCE ½
Foursome: G MacDonald, D McCart bt J P Combart, G Roumeas 1 hole.
Singles: S Ellis bt R Fontagneres 2 holes, I C Hutcheon bt A Riviere 3 and 1, B Grieve bt A Godillot 3 and 2, J W Johnston halved with A Coune.

IRELAND 3, ENGLAND 2
Foursome: N Duke, V Smyth bt R Smethurst, A Morrison 2 and 1.
Singles: M Kelly lost to D Lane 1 hole, S McParland lost to C Reynolds 3 and 2, T Goode bt D Arnold 1 hole, H Smyth bt A Squires 5 and 4.

SECOND FLIGHT
Germany 3, Sweden 2.
Italy 3, Spain 2.

THIRD FLIGHT
Denmark 3 ½, Finland 1 ½.
Switzerland 4 ½, Belgium ½.

FOURTH FLIGHT
Austria 3, Czech Republic 2.
Netherlands 3, Slovenia 2.

FIFTH FLIGHT
Norway 4, Luxembourg 1.