European senior men's amateur team championship

FIGHTING SCOTS HIT BACK TO BEAT SWEDES

Scotland staged a stirring fightback to beat fourth seeds Sweden 3-2 in the quarter-finals of the European senior men's amateur team golf championship at Fairhaven Golf Club, Lancashire today.

The Scots, who qualified fifth of eighth for the top flight, were trailing 2-0 to the Swedes after Ian Taylor (Royal Burgess) and Colin Christy (Kilmacolm) lost the foursomes by 3 and 2 to Per Hildebrand and Ulf Sundberg, followed by a 5 and 4 defeat for Scottish senior champion Scott MacDonald (Dunfermline) by Mats Andersson in the first singles.

MacDonald is having a nightmare debut in this championship. Both his scores were non-counting in the stroke-play stages. Now he loses heavily in his first singles.

Fortunately, Tony Stafford (Dun Ochil), David Gardner (Broomieknowe) and Edzell's Jim Watt rose to the occasion, producing three hard-fought victories that turned the tables on the Swedes.

Stafford won by two holes against Stefan Lindberg. Gardner, pictured by courtesy of Tom Ward, came back from three down at the turn to win at the 20th against Tomas Persson.

Jim Watt won by two holes over Ernis Ahsberg.

Scotland now play the red-hot favourites Ireland, who qualified for the match-play streets ahead of everyone else and knocked out eighth qualifiers Switzerland 5-0 as expected.

No 2 seeds England won 5-0 against seventh qualifiers Austria and play Spain, the sixth seeds, who beat the No 3 qualifiers, Germany 3-2.

Quarter-finals

IRELAND 5, SWITZERLAND 0.

Tom Cleary and Michael Quirke bt Urs Ris and Michel Barras 1 hole.

Garth McGimpsey bt Martin Kessler 6 and 4.

Maurice Kelly bt Claude Rey 7 and 6.

Adrian Morrow bt Yves Robyr 4 and 3.

Arethur Pierse bt Yves Hofstetter 3 and 2.

 

SCOTLAND 3, SWEDEN 2

Ian Taylor and Colin Christy lost to Per Hildebrand and Ulf Sunberg 3 and 2.

Scott MacDonald lost to Mats Andersson 5 and 4.

Tony Stafford bt Stefan Lindberg 2 holes.

David Gardner bt Tomas Persson at 20th.

Jim Watt bt Ernis Ahsberg 2 holes.

SPAIN 3, GERMANY 2.

ENGLAND 5, AUSTRIA 0

Doug Arnold and Dave Jessup bt Hans Wadl and Martin Fektor 3 and 2.

Alan Squires bt Dietmar Sabin 3 and 1.

Andrew Carman bt Karl Beichl 4 and 3.

Chris Reynolds bt Rudi Hinterholzer 4 and 3.

Philip Slater bt Johann Aigner 4 and 3.