HUGH HUNTER'S CLACKMANNANSHIRE NEWS

EVEN MORE MACAULAY MAGIC

He just keeps churning out the scores and piling up the Euros.

For the third week in a row Callum Macaulay made the cut in a European Tour event and moved further up the field with good third and fourth rounds. The latest was in the Portuguese Open where he made the cut comfortably with one under par rounds of 70 twice.

A one-over-par 72 in the third round kept him steady and he finished with a Macaulay flourish and his best round of 68 to put him at three under par for the tournament, which earned him a share of 12th place, four shots behind the winner and almost 18,000 Euros prize money.

Callum's prize money to date is well over 100,000 Euros and he is well on his way to retaining his tour card for next year.
Callum is now 404th in the world pro rankings and in the Race to Dubai he lies in 67th place, the third best Scot and 22 places ahead of Colin Montgomerie, both having played six events.

The top 60 get an invite to the Dubai World Championships with a multi million dollar prize fund, so the competition will be very keen over the next few months.
With these good performances and hopefully more to come, Callum must be confident of some invites to the bigger European Tour events, giving him chances of moving up the rankings.

CHAMPION OF CHAMPIONS

Last year the event was curtailed because of snow, but this year there were no such problems for the Scottish Champion of Champions tournament at Leven Links.

Dollar’s Scott Borrowman qualified by virtue of his win in the 2008 Clackmannan County Championship. He opened with two over par rounds of 73 on the first day, leaving him in the middle of the field.

However, Scott found form on the last two rounds with sub-par Sunday scores of 68 and 70, giving him a total of level par 284 for the 72 holes. He finished sixth equal place among the top Scottish players, and five shots behind the winner Glenn Campbell (Blairgowrie) who beat Philip McLean of Peterhead at the second hole of a sudden-death play-off.

Scott’s current world amateur ranking is 410, so with a few more results like last weekend, he should move swiftly up.

COUNTY JUST FAIL AT TULLIALLAN

In the second match of the Provan Salver, the Clackmannan county team went down 5-3 at Tulliallan against a strong Angus side. Steven Horne fought back over the inward nine to turn a two-hole deficit around into a win, and good performances from Scott Moffat and John Maxwell kept the scoreline reasonably respectable.
This coming weekend the Clackmannan team are in action at Braehead in the local derby match against Stirlingshire. Playing for the County will be R Benvie, M Rust (Braehead), J Aitken, S Moffat, D Milloy (Alloa) D Hulston (Dollar) J Maxwell, I Munro (Tulliallan)

GOLF AWARENESS WEEK

Starting on Monday, April 13 there is a national initiative to try to recruit more members for Scottish golf clubs.

Many clubs will be holding Open days including some in the Wee County.
Anyone thinking of joining a local golf club should make contact to find out what arrangements have been made.

HUGH HUNTER