WALLACE BOOTH FINDS PAR NOT GOOD ENOUGH ON HOOTERS TOUR

COLIN FARQUHARSON reports

Colin@scottishgolfview.com

Former Walker Cup player Wallace Booth has made the trip from his Comrie base in Perthshire to America in search of a tour he can play on.

Booth is lying joint 50th in a field of 128 players after the first round of this week's NGA Hooters Tour Winter Series event at Rio Pinar Country Club near Orlando, Florida.
Wallace, pictured by Cal Carson Golf Agency, shot a par 72 over the 6,878yd course which, you would think, was a reasonable effort but in the highly-competitive realms of the Hooters Tour, a par round does not cut much ice.
Booth is in danger of missing the cut down to the leading 40 and ties after two rounds. Wallace was going nicely with birdies at the second, fourth and eighth in a three-under-par 33 to the turn but he lost his way after that with bogeys at the long 10th, 11th, 13th and 14th. A birdie at the long 16th got him home in 39.
Booth is entered out of Augusta, Georgia where he was a student at Augusta State University for four years.

Another past Walker Cup player - 2009 vintage - Chris Paisley from Newcastle is sharing 25th place in the same tournament with a two-under 70 (33-37) He birdied the fifth, and got an eagle 2 at the par-4 sixth but then his sub-par golf dried up.

Paisley, who picked up a fistful of dollars for a high finish on the Hooters Tour last week, covered his last 12 holes in one over par with 11 pars and a bogey at the 14th.

Leading the field is Hooters Tour regular Will Wilcox from Alabama with a 66.

Inverness exile Russell Knox, one of the NGA Hooters Tour's most prolific dollar-earners over the past two or three years, is missing out on this and last week's event while he tries his luck at Monday qualifying to get into US PGA Tour events.