EUROPEAN MID-AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP

LONE SCOT FOWLIE 

TIED FOURTH AFTER 

FIRST ROUND IN

PRAVERS, BULGARIA

By COLIN FARQUHARSON
Colin@scottishgolfview.com
Former North-east youths champion Andy Fowlie (pictured), a country member at Royal Aberdeen Golf Club, is lying joint fourth with a three-under-par 69 after the first round of the European mid-amateur men's championship at Pravers Golf Club, Bulgaria.

Fowlie, a Nokia software program manager, has lived and worked in Finland for the past decade and has maintained a low handicap despite not being able to golf from October to May because of the winter weather closes in early and lasts longer in Finland.

The only Scot in the field, he birdied the long first, second, sixth, 10th and short 13th, offset by bogeys at the seventh and 14th, to be three shots behind the German leader, Alexander Koller.

The 54-hole event is being contested by a field of 112 players aged 35 or over.

LEADING FIRST-ROUND SCORES

Par 72

66 A Koller (Ger)

68 F Banzhaf (Ger), N De Lucis Barni (Ita)

69 A Fowlie (Royal Aberdeen), R Heath (Lausanne), R Rattansi (Queenwood).

SELECTED SCORES

73 T Burley (Burnham and Berrow) (T19)

74 P Jackson (Woking), F Flynn (Layton and Bettystown, Ireland) (T29)

79 S Crolla (Blackpool North Shore) (T66)

80 A Irvin (Silloth-on-Solway) (T72)

81 S Hodgson (Silloth-on-Solway) (T85)