EAST RENFREWSHIRE VETERAN (48) COMING OFF CRAIGMILLAR PARK OPEN VICTORY

   Craig Watson receives the Craigmillar Park Open Trophy from lady captain    Karen Ballantyne last Sunday.

CRAIG WATSON WIN AT CRAIL WOULD 

GIVE GOLFERS IN 40s ANOTHER BOOST

By COLIN FARQUHARSON
What a boost it would be for club golfers in their late 40s if former British amateur champion Craig Watson could follow up his victory in the truncated Craigmillar Park Open last Sunday by winning this weekend's SGU Order of Merit event, the Battle Trophy over the Crail Golfing Society's Gil Hanse-designed Craighead Links.
At 48, the East Renfrewshire man. a career amateur - he works in a Giffnock electrical
business, had only to play two rounds to win at the Edinburgh venue after high winds made Saturday play impossible.
But, barring the show-stopping return of bad weather, Watson will have to play 72 holes at Crail and that might be a bridge too far for the man who beat South African Trevor Immelman (winner of the
Masters in 2008) 3 and 2 in the British Amateur final at Royal St George's in 1997 when the Scot was "only" 31.
Graeme Robertson (Glenbervie) (pictured above right) teed off with an 81 last year but played out of his skin for the next three rounds and finished up as the 2013 of the Battle Trophy the name of which is inspired by the raised earthwork on the Craighead course, known as 'Dane's Dyke' which is a feature at the 11th, 14th, 15th and 16th holes. 
It is thought to have been built to defend a Viking settlement at Fifeness against the dispossessed Pictish tribes.
There are three figures on the solid silver trophy which was commissioned and donated by a past club captain and has a value of £10,000 (no wonder the winner does not get to take it away from the Crail clubhouse): A Viking, representing man's battle against man; an 18th Century golfer, representing man's battle against himself; a Lifeboat man, representing man's battle against the elements.
The draw for Saturday's two rounds includes Alexander Culverwell (Dunbar), who won the Battle  Trophy in 2011, the year that the tournament switched from 36 holes to four rounds and became an SGU Order of merit counting event.
The field also includes Blairgowrie youngster Bradley Neil, runner up in the South African  Amateur championship earlier this, Jack MacDonald (Kilmarnock Barassie and Stirling University), winner of the British Universities Championship over the Craghead Links last year, and Scott Borrowman (Dollar), a member of the Clackmannan squad that contested the SGU area team championship over Craighead Links last year and whose most recent form includes a repeat victory in the Scottish Champion of Champions tournament at Leven and a joint third finish behind Craig Watson in the Craigmillar Park Open last Sunday.