WHATEVER HAPPENED TO 2000 BARASSIE HERO LEE RHIND?

FROM HUGH HUNTER
Past President of the Scottish Golf Union
Reference the recent Scottishgolfview article about the 2000 European youths championship at Barassie.

The details are all in the SGU Year Book for 2001 but, unfortunately, no individual scores/results are given. The Scotland team were fourth in the stroke-play qualifying. Lee Rhind (Editor's note: Whatever happened to him?), pictured, was the hero. He shot six birdies in seven holes to guarantee the Scots a quarter-final place.

Scotland played Ireland - Graeme McDowell and all! - in the match-play, losing the foursomes 2-0 but came back in the singles to win overall by 4-3.
Scotland played Sweden in the semi-final winnng the foursomes 2-0 but Sweden clawed back and Scotland won again by 4-3
England beat Wales 5-2 in the other semi-final

In the Scotland v England final, England won the foursomes and led 3-2 needing only one further win. The last two singles ties went to extra holes. Barry Hume won at the 20th to level the overall scoreline at 3-3.

In the last match - Joel Hendry v Tom Whitehouse - the 20th was halved in birdie 3s, Hendry holing from 6ft. At the 21st, Whitehouse holed a long putt to win and make England the 2000 European youths team champions.

Gordon Whyte was the captain of the Scotland team. However, the all- important detail you might want is missing - Who played Graeme McDowell? Think you would have to phone one of the team.

What the report doesn't tell you is that the Scotland team all dyed their hair red (a la Steven O'Hara). This caused more than a few raised eyebrows!

The final championship rankings were:

1 England, 2 Scotland, 3 Wales, 4 Sweden, 5 Denmark, 6 Finland, 7 Ireland, 8 Italy (down to 17 teams).

Hugh Hunter