Two weeks of great golf on Sutherland's East Coast

By ROBIN WILSON
The best two weeks of competitive golf over Sutherland's East Coast courses begins on Saturday at Golspie Golf Club with the two-day 36 hole Classic competition combined with the opening of the Brora Week on Sunday. The Brora competitions are all sponsored by the local Clynelish Distillery.
Last year the Classic event at Golspie was won by Inverness's Bruce Thomson after he held off a strong challenge from Brora's “old head” Jim Miller, Miller the first winner of this Golspie event when it was added to the Sutherland calendar in 1988. Thomson is defending the trophy at the weekend but little has been seen of Miller this season so Dougall Chalmers (Panmure) winner of the Sutherland County Championship at the venue last June is a good bet to follow.
The Classic will conclude on Sunday just as the final pairings from an entry of one hundred tee off in the annual mixed foursomes competition to herald the start of the Brora Week where local pairing Marlene Bokas and John Sutherland will again be the two to beat for the scratch trophy, having already come out on top in an earlier July mixed event.
Monday at 6am sees the start of the qualifying process for 180 local and visiting golfers searching for a place in the match-play stages of the Clynelish Salver at Brora. Now Head Greenkeeper on the Brora course James MacBeath's work responsibilities takes precedence this year and prevents the local club champion defending the Clynelish Salver and adding to his already record seven victories since 1997. Last years handicap section winners turning up to defend are Kevin MacLeod (Helmsdale), Scott Fraser (Inchmarlo) and Jamie Malcolm (Edinburgh).
Twenty four hours after the Salver is presented to the winner at Brora the fixtures return to Golspie for their flagship competition, the Sinclair Cup. Twelve months ago the Golspie course had two course record scores set in the space of seven days. Inverness's Bruce Thomson's 68 in the Classic followed up a week later by Brora's Roddy Cameron when making a successful defence of the Sinclair Cup bettering Thomson's 68 by two strokes..
With more alterations to the Golspie design over the winter months, the first hole lengthened to a par 5 and the 15th extended by way of a new tee, the Golspie course record passed to Royal Dornoch's Bryan Urquhart with his 69 in the first round of this year's county championship.
With the influx of low handicap golfers arriving in the coming weeks it was a likelihood that Urquhart's record would fall but the task of the players now lining up to play Golspie over the next two weeks has been made even more difficult when last weekend when playing in the W A Macrae Trophy the golfer who knows the course best, head greenkeeper Alex MacDonald, bettered Urquhart's score by three and MacDonald now has possession of the course record at 66.
Other attractive open competitions before the big one, the Carnegie Shield at Royal Dornoch from August 15 to 20 include a mixed open at Golspie on Wednesday August 4 and a men's Gala Week Open on Sunday August 8. Royal Dornoch has two warm-ups before the Carnegie, the Lady Captain's Open Mixed Foursomes (yesterday) and next Thursday, August 4, the Ladies Open Tournament, the legendary Joyce Wethered the winner of the Sliver Medal in the 1920's.
The Ladies are also catered for at Tain Golf Club next week and there is still time to enter their own four- day competition played in conjunction with the men's four day tournament and then round off their week on Saturday August 7 playing in the Tain Pottery Women's Open. Still with the Ladies on Saturday August 14 the Brora Ladies Section host their open tournament.
Royal Dornoch's flagship event for the Carnegie Shield commences on Sunday, August 8 with qualifying rounds for the higher handicap groups then two days later home member Chris Mailley launches his defence of the Carnegie Shield in the first of the two qualifying rounds for category 1 and 2 golfers. The priceless Shield was gifted to the Dornoch Golf Club in 1901 by Andrew Carnegie of Skibo and bears many household names from Dornoch and afar. To recall just a few winners names engraved on the trophy from years past and nearer the present here are a few - Tommy Grant, Roger Wethered, Earnest Holderness, Robbie Grant, James (Cairnie) Macrae, Jim “Tite” Mackay, Duncan “Barrel” Murray, K W Walker, Tommy McCulloch, Raymond “RAG” Munro, Willie Skinner, Jim Miller, Stuart Shaw, David James, Stewart Wilson and the youngest ever winner in the Carnegie Centenary year of 2001, David Aitchison. One name still missing from the Shield after near thirty years of trying and to complete his impressive Sutherland CV, Dougall Chalmers?.
Enjoy a fabulous two weeks of competition on four of the North's fabulous links.