SCROLL DOWN TO THE END OF THIS REPORT TO READ TODAY'S NE ALLIANCE TALKING POINT:
Where have all the pros gone?

LAST MAN IN - CHRIS ROBB REWRITES

THE STORY OF DHR ALLIANCE!

By COLIN FARQUHARSON

You think I would be too long in the tooth to write my golf reports before the last man has handed in his card. You would be wrong!
I did it again today at Banff. I had finished my story on my laptop in the clubhouse about Anthony Bews heading a field of 104 in today's North-east Alliance competition at Duff House Royal .... when in came the Scottish schoolboys champion, Chris Robb (Inchmarlo), the very last man to finish ... and he grabbed, metaphorically speaking, the £100 first prize voucher with a par-matching round of 68
Eighteen-year-old Robb, who plays off +1, hopes to gain a golf scholarship to an American college either this autumn or in 2010. With the CV he is building up, that should not be a problem.
Robb, pictured above today at Duff House Royal, laid the foundation of his score, which had halves of 33 and 35, on a day when nobody found the 6161yd course easy with birdies at the first, second and fourth. He added a fourth and final birdie by getting home in two shots at the par-5 12th and two-putting for a 4.
Shots dropped at the third, seventh, 15th and 17th cancelled out his
birdies but it was a good effort by the tall youngster.
And so Murcar Links +2 amateur Anthony Bews finished second for the second week in a row, this time on his own. Remember he had a triple bogey 7 at the 14th over his home course last week, which cost him certain victory and saw him finish in a multi-tie for the runner-up position.

Bews, who works in the pro's shop at Murcar Links but is not an assistant pro, birdied the fourth and fifth before bogeying the ninth, 11th and 18th. He had halves of 33 and 36.

Brian Nicholson (Auchmill), Stewart Finnie (Caledonian) and Brian Ritchie (Inverallochy) finished joint third on the 70 mark. Nicholson had halves of 35, Ritchie 36-34 and Finnie 34-36.
Both Ritchie and Finnie had double bogey 5s at a short hole, Ritchie at the sixth and Finnie at the 16th.

Leading scores (par 68)
SCRATCH
68 C Robb (Inchmarlo).
69 A Bews (Murcar Links).
70 B Ritchie (Inverallochy), B Nicolson (Auchmill), S Finnie (Caledonian).
71 B Fitzpatrick (Inchmarlo), G H Paterson (Northern), D Law (Hazlehead).
72 J Nicolson (Auchmill), S Davidson (Banchory).
73 W Main (Murcar Links), A J Smith (Turriff), C Nelson (MacKenzie Club), A K Pirie(Hazlehead), C Stephen (Meldrum House), R Milne (Aboyne).
74 G Lornie (Kings Links), S Scott (Auchmill), D Wilson (Duff House Royal).
75 P Lovie (P1 Corporate), J Scott (Peterculter), R Hyland
(Craibstone), J Mooney (unatt), S Chalmers (Banchory).
76 C Buchanan (Hazlehead), J Duncan (Newburgh), D Clark (Duff House Royal), S Murray (Newburgh).
77 D Philip (Newburgh), B McPherson (Northern), C Law (Hazlehead), M Jenkins (Duff House Royal).
78 C Carnegie (Kemnay), J Dalgarno (Hazlehead), D Garrett (Turriff), F Bisset (Banchory).
79 C Cassie (Nigg Bay), P Farnan (Royal Aberdeen), J Roberts (Cruden Bay), J M Hamilton (Murcar Links), S Pert (Huntly), D Naylor (Banchory), N Parker (Murcar Links).
HANDICAP
Class 1 – C Buchanan (Hazlehead) (8), B Ritchie (Inverallochy) (2), B Nicolson (Auchmill) (2), R Milne (Aboyne) (5) 68; A J Smith (Turriff) (4), C Robb (+1) 69; D Philip (Newburgh) (7), S Scott (Auchmill) (4), D Wilson (Duff House Royal) (4), J Nicolson (Auchmill) (2), B McPherson
(Northern) (7), S Finnie (Caledonian) (scr) 70.

Class 2 – J Scott (Peterculter) (11) 64; M Brown (Craibstone) (18) 67; D Lawrie (Inchmarlo) (14) 68; M Booth (Kemnay) (12) , H McNaughton (Cruden Bay) (11) 69; N Parker (Murcar Links) (2), D Randall (Banchory) (13) 70; P Simpson (Aboyne) (13) 71.
DUFF HOUSE ROYAL SCORECARD FOR PAR OF 68

OUT: 4-4-4-4-4-3-4-4-3--34. IN: 4-3-5-3-4-4--3-4-4--34.

TODAY'S LEADING RETURNS:

CHRIS ROBB 68

OUT: 3-3-5-3-4-3-5-4-3--33. IN: 4-3-4-3-4--5-3-5-4--35.

ANTHONY BEWS 69

OUT: 4-4-4-3-3-3-4-4-4--33. IN: 4-4-5-3-4-4-3-4-5--36.

BRIAN NICOLSON 70

OUT: 4-4-3-4--5-3-5-4-3--35. IN: 4-4-4-3-4-4-4-4-4--35.

BRIAN RITCHIE 70

OUT: 4-4-3-3-4-5-5-5-3--36. IN: 5-3-5-2-4-4-4-4-3--34.

STEWART FINNIE 70

OUT: 4-4-4-4-4-3-4-4-3--34. IN: 5-3--4-3-3-4-5-5-5--36

TODAY'S NE ALLIANCE TALKING POINT

Where have all the pros gone?

Colin Farquharson writes:

Talking with NE Alliance secretary Ron Menzies today in the Duff House Royal clubhouse and we were reminiscing about the days when the club professionals and assistants used to dominate the weekly prizelists.

Not so now. The fact that so few of them actually PLAY in the Alliances these days means they seldom figure in the top 10.

"I think full-time amateurs like today's winner Chris Robb and David Law actually play a lot more competitive golf than any of the North-east club professionals - and the Alliance pendulum of power, if you want to call it that, has certainly swung over to the amateurs in recent years," says Ron Menzies.

(Colin Farquharson writing again): I played in the North-east Alliances back in the 1960s when almost all of the club professionals in the area turned out for the Wednesday competitions. Now, you could draw up a lengthy list of the clubs whose professionals/assistants simply do not play, starting at Ballater, working your way down the Dee Valley to Aboyne ... Banchory is a notable exception ... Deeside? Well, Frank Coutts no longer plays, more the pity, and his asisstant, Nick Reid, who did support the Alliances, has left Frank's staff.

Would doubling the weekly top prize to £200 change the situation? Probably not. Perhaps we should rejoice that we have young and very good amateurs gracing the North-east Alliance scene instead of bemoaning the lack of professional competition for them.

What do you think? E-mail your opinion to Colin@scottishgolfview.com