BARRIE BLISTERS ABERDEEN LINKS CHAMPIONSHIP WITH A 64

Bon Accord's Barrie Edmond, showing no signs of a week-long successful campaign to win the Maitland Shield, began his defence of the Aberdeen Links championship with a superb round of 64, six under the CSS, in Saturday's first qualifying round.

Barrie, pictured by Cal Carson Golf Agency, leads by four shots from Caledonian's Lee Morrice and B Reid.

Neil Mitchell, another of the Bon Accord quartet who won the City of Aberdeen foursomes at Peterculter on Friday night, is lying fourth on 70. And another Bon Accord Maitland Shield hero, Matt Greig, is sharing fifth place on 72 with that old Links championship warhorse, Alex Cruickshank.

SCOREBOARD

ABERDEEN LINKS CHAMPIONSHIP

First qualifying round (CSS 70)

LEADING SCORES

64 B.Edmond (BA).

68 L Morrice (C), B Reid (C).

70 N Mitchell (BA).

72 I Welsh (BA), M.Greig (BA), A. Cruickshank (C).,

73 A Haining (BA), M Beattie (C), J Annand (BA), R Evett (N), R Young (BA), S Finnie (C).

74 A Fiddes (N), M Smith (BA).

MURRAY CUP

(CSS 69)

63 N Rose (N) (24).

64 R Buchan (N) (19).

68 W Guyan (BA) (10), T Butler (N) (12), C Murphy (BA) (16).

69 J Muir (N) (13), G F Webster (N) (18), N Christie (BA) (18).

SENIORS

(CSS 67)

SCRATCH

73 A Fiddes (N).

74 D Coull (N).

75 R A Cheyne (BA), D McKay (C).

77 J Murphy (N).

HANDICAP

63 D Coull (N) (11).

66 J Muir (N) (13), R Ludlam (BA) (20).

67 F Watson (BA) (20), E Yeats (C) (19), W McKay (BA) (23).