The Great Escape: Scots do a 'Houdini' to beat

Swedes from 0-2 down

By COLIN FARQUHARSON

Well, I said at lunchtime that if Scotland could wriggle off the hook of a 2-0 foursomes deficit to beat Sweden, even the late great Harry Houdini would have been proud of such an escape. And the Scots did just that with a magnificent afternoon performance in the singles to win four out of five and finish up with a 4-3 scoreline in their favour at the end of the day.

Now for second seeds Italy in Friday's semi-finals!

Scoreboard:

SCOTLAND 4, SWEDEN 3
Foursomes (0-2):
Wallace Booth & Michael Stewart lost to Pontus Gad & Pontus Widegren 3 and 1.
Gavin Dear & Glenn Campbell lost to Jesper Kennegard & Henrik Norlander 4 and 3.
Singles (4-1):
Dear bt Robin Wingardh 2 and 1.
Booth bt David Lingmerth 1 hole.
Stewart lost to Kennegard 1 hole.
Ross Kellett bt Widegren 1 hole.
Paul O'Hara bt Norlander 4 and 3.

FROM THE WELSH GOLF UNION'S CHAMPIONSHIP WEBSITE:
Scotland bounced back from a 2-0 deficit against Sweden after the morning foursomes to grab a place in the semi-finals against Italy.
Despite the disappointments of the morning, the Scots were full of confidence in the afternoon with Wallace Booth turning his match around to win it by one hole.
To watch video interview with Ross Kellett click here
With Gavin Dear and Paul O’Hara also winning their singles, that meant everything came down to Ross Kellett (pictured above by Cal Carson Golf Agency) who managed to close out his victory on the 18th.
“The mood is pretty upbeat with a good win today, it was pretty special,” said Kellett.
“We knew we were playing well, our coach reminded us of a few times we had done it in the past and we knew we had to win matches – a halved match would not do us any good.
“Mine was tight and when I got the shout coming down the last that it was all riding on my match then things changed again, but obviously it was not just me – it was down to all the guys, even though I did hole the winning putt.
“We are feeling better because of the way we won, maybe one each in the morning it would have been anybody’s game, but the way we won it definitely gives us more inspiration and happiness for tomorrow.”
Scotland came into the event as world champions, after winning Eisenhower Trophy in Australia at the end of last year.
“The guys did great out in Adelaide and it is good for the team that we have two guys who did win that because we can learn from them,” said Kellett.
“We thrive on what we did, it gives us inspiration to add a European Championships to that.
“In any round now it will be a tough game - the Italians are playing well with good scores in the strokeplay and great success last week with Matteo winning the British Amateur, but if we are on our golf then we can cause an upset.”
Other results in the Championship Flight

Norway (No 1 seeds) bt Finland (No 8 seeds) 5-2.

Foursomes: Norway 2, Finland 0.

Singles: Norway 3, Finland 2.

England (No 4 seeds) bt France (No 5 seeds) 4 1/2-2 1/2

Foursomes: England 2, France 0.

Singles; England 2 1/2, France 2 1/2.

Italy (No 2 seeds) bt Germany (No 7 seeds) 5 1/2- 1 1/2

Foursomes: Italy 2, Germany 0.

Singles: Italy 3 1/2, Germany 1 1/2

FRIDAY SEMI-FINALS

Norway v England

Scotland v Italy