Keir McNicoll first Scot to be

+6 player at end of a season

The Scottish Golf Union has confirmed that Carnoustie's Keir McNicoll is the first player in the national handicap audit to be a +6 player at the end of the year.
"We had have +5 players in the audit before and they may have reached +6 during the season. However, Keir is the first player to reach +6 at the year end when we ask for the handicap audit information," said former Scottish women's amateur champion Fiona Hastie, Golf Administrator on the SGU staff.
McNicoll won the St Andrews Links Trophy and the Leven Gold Medal in what was a busy and successful season. The national handicap audit shows he played 93 competitive stroke-play rounds in 2008 and that does not include match-play ties.
He returned 30 scores under 70, the lowest of which were 61 and 62 at Carnoustie Burnside. He had a 66 over the Carnoustie championship course.
McNicoll flies out with the SGU Elite Squad to Portugal on Saturday for warm weather practice.
Later he will fly out to Florida for a winter check-up from his swing coach Bill Davis at Jupiter Hills, Florida. McNicoll played the US college circuit as a student at Lynn University, Boca Raton, Florida - where his sister Katy is still a student.
Keir, who is 24, has been a member of the past two GB&I preliminary Walker Cup squads without making the final team. Perhaps it will be third time lucky in 2009 when the match against the United States is at Merion Golf Club, Ardmore in Pennsylvania.
Before that McNicoll will be competing in America at the Jones Cup Invitational, contested by Walker Cup-class amateurs and held annually over the Ocean Forest Golf Club course at Sea Island, Georgia. Next year's dates are February 6 to 8.