TITLE-HOLDERS SCOTLAND TRAIL
ON FIRST DAY IN SPAIN
Scotland made all the running when they won the PGAs of Europe international team golf championship at Roda Golf & Beach Resort, Murcia in Spain last year. This time round, the Tartan Tour Scots are trailing in joint 16th place after the first round in bright, warm but breezy conditions.
Sam Cairns (Westerwood) matched the par of 72 while Gary McFarlane (Clober) had a 73 and Jim McKinnon (Irvine) had the non-counting score of 75. A one-over-par first-round team total of 145 was not a bad effort but it was well off the cracking pace being set at seven-under-par 137 by Holland and Wales.
Cairns and McKinnon were in the successful Scotland trio 12 months ago. McFarlane has come in to take the place of Craig Lee (Stirling), who was the team's inspiration last year and winner of the individual title. But Craig has moved on to higher things. He won a European Tour card at the recent Qualifying School farther south in Spain at San Roque and makes his debut in the Big League in South Africa later this week.

FIRST ROUND TOTALS
(Two from three scores to count for team).
137 HOLLAND (Bronno Valk 68, Johan Eerdmans 69, Mark Reynolds 71); WALES (James Lee 68, Andrew Barnett 69, Peter Evans 73) .
139 PORTUGAL (Nelson Cavalheiro 66, Sergio Ribeiro 73, Almerindo Sequeira 76); ITALY (Mauro Bianco 68, Fernando Pasqualucci 71, Mario Tadini 73); UNITED ARAB EMIRATES (Simon Payne 68, Greg Holmes 71, Craig Martin 77).
140 NORWAY (Morten Haeras 67, Thomas Hansen 73, Thomas Oderud 75); GERMANY (Simon Brown 69, Mark Stevenson 71, Paul Archbold 72).
141 ENGLAND (James Whatley 69, Michael Nesbit 72, Danny Taylor 72); SOUTH AFRICA (Morne Botha 69, William Guy 72, Paul Marks 75)
142 AUSTRIA (Florian Ruprecht 71, Claude Grenier 71, Gordon Manson 76).
143 SPAIN (Juan Rosillo 68, Mariano Aparico 75, Alberto Ocejo 81); DENMARK (Thomas Nilsson 71, Hans Henrik Larsen 72, Ronny Kert 77).
144 CZECH REPUBLIC (Petr Strougal 72, Jan Juhaniak 72, Jiri Nemeck 77); POLAND (Martyn Proctor 72, Mike O’Brien 72, Peter Bronson 72); SWITZERLAND (Giles Hickman 71, David Clarke 73, Carl Robinson 73).
145 IRELAND (Robert Giles 71, Brendan McGovern 74, Leslie Walker 76); FINLAND (Sakari Aho 72, Harri Murtonen 73, Jyry Peltomaki 73); SWEDEN (Ricard Thornqvist 72, Niclas Bjornsson 73, Petter Jonsson 75); SCOTLAND (Sam Cairns 72, Gary McFarlane 73, James McKinnon 75).
147 BELGIUM (Matthieu De Lille 70, Arnaud Beaupain 77, Frank Dhondt 77); SLOVENIA (Andrej Kraljic 73, Janez Grilc 74, Rok Pisek 76).
148 CROATIA (Miro Raic 73, Neno Smoljenivis 75, Darko Ljubanopvic 85).
150 MEXICO (Ismael Estrada 74, Arnulfo Romero 76, Israel Mendez 78).
152 GREECE (Themis Ginis 70, Harry Zervos 82, Eugenie Papadolpoulos 84); SLOVAKIA (Peter Spacek 72, Michal Oravec 81, Lukas Valuch 80); RUSSIA (Alexey Matrosov 73, Artem Nesterov 79, Alexander Gruzdov 80).
158 LUXEMBOURG (John Pickford 79, Leon Marks 79, Julien Pallier 80).
162 BULGARIA (Neil Turley 79, Robin McGarr 83, Nikolay Stanew 84).