HUGH HUNTER'S CLACKMANNAN COUNTY NEWS

 SUN SHINES ON COUNTY GOLFERS.

The Clackmannan county competition season opened last weekend with the Spring meetings at Braehead and Dollar.   

Played in fine weather, the events attracted a number of late entries with well over one hundred local golfers participating.  

Home players triumphed at both venues. Top net scorers at the Division 1 event at Braehead were Gary Rafferty 69-5: 64, and Gary Little 74-10: 64.  Top scratch scores were Gary Rafferty and Ross Benvie with rounds of  70.  The CSS was 69 (home players) and 70 (visitors).

In the Division 2 events at Dollar, top net scorers were James Currie 83-18: 65 and Gordon Fenwick 77-12: 65.  

Gordon returned the best scratch score of 77.  The CSS was 69.

                                                                                    GREAT START BY SCOTT

 Dollar’s Scott Borrowman had a great start to his 2014 season. Following his retention of the Champion of Champions title at Leven, he finished joint third in the weather-shortened Craigmillar Park Open which is the first Open event of the 2014 Order of Merit.  

Despite this, he was not selected for the 21-man squad for the Great Britain and Ireland St Andrews Trophy match against Europe in August. 

Five Scots were selected. No-one could quibble about the first four as they are the top Scots in the World Amateur Golf rankings.  However the fifth selection probably raised a few eyebrows, bypassing the next nine top Scottish players (including the current Scottish Amateur Champion) and dropping almost 300 world ranking places.  

Nine players will be selected during the season to play in this the St Andrews Trophy match to be held in Sweden.

                                                                                LAWRENCE MAKING PROGRESS

Alva’s Lawrence Allan continues to develop his golf with South Eastern University Louisiana, and with a number of good rounds, his world amateur golf ranking has improved by 116 places to 767. His progress can be followed on the “lion sport” web site of SE University Louisiana

                                                                          COUNTY TEAM POISED FOR WIN

The final match of the Provan Salver takes place this weekend at Tulliallan where Clackmannanshire take on Perth and Kinross.  With previous wins against Fife  (5.5-2.5) and Angus  (7-1), the team will be in confident mood and hopefully will get the job done.