DUNCAN STEWART HEADS FOR CHALLENGE TOUR

Highlander Duncan Stewart secured his 2013 Challenge Tour card with a second successive PGA EuroPro Tour victory, winning the Sweetspot Masters with a 54-hole score of 17 under par. The Grantown on Spey man won his second £10,000 prize of the season and his third over the past two years by eight strokes from runners-up Billy Fowles (Wentworth) and Dale Whitnell (Five Lakes) at Hunley Hotel and Golf Club after signing for a final-round 69 (four under par) after a testing day on the windy North Yorkshire coast. Stewart can expect a congratulatory E-mail from Inverness-born but US-based Russell Knox, now a US PGA Tour player but a member of the Jacksonville University golf team for four years alongside Stewart. The Scot got off to a perfect start with a birdie three at the first and gained another shot at the fifth. A bogey at six was only a brief setback, with a birdie at eight making amends. Back-to-back birdies at 12 and 13 improved his score further. A bogey at 14 never looked like costing him and he added a final birdie at the 16th. Upon sinking his final putt Stewart's 'Team Scotland' teammates drenched their compatriot in champagne to celebrate his success. His second consecutive £10,000 winner's cheque assures Stewart a top five finish on this season's Order of Merit and with it a place on the 2013 Challenge Tour, one tier below the European Tour. "To get the Challenge Tour card is massive," he said afterwards. "It is what you are working towards all season so to be one of the five who achieve it is superb. "My putting was outstanding this week. I got some momentum going on the first but there was a lot of scrambling out there because of the winds. "I would rather play in flat, calm and sunny conditions every day but you cannot help the weather and it becomes about how you go around the course and deal with the conditions."  The top 60 in the current Order of Merit will be invited to Tour Championships, which take place at Woburn Golf Club in November. LEADING FINAL TOTALS Par 219 (3x73) 202 Duncan Stewart (Grantown on Spey) 65 68 69 (£10,000) 210 Billy Fowles (Eng) 69 73 68, Dale Whitnell (Eng) 70 70 70 (£3,750 each). OTHER SCOTS 216 John Gallagher (Turnhouse) 72 71 72 (£553). 218 John Henry (Clydebank and Dist) 68 74 76 (T24) (£335). 220 Shaun McAllister (Craigielaw) 72 72 76 (T36) (£262) 224 Ed Wood (Crow Wood) 70 72 82 (T43) (£205).