Greg Dalziel best at Strathtyrum
 
FROM WALTER BURNS
Here are the results from the Scottish Junior Golf Tour event at St Andrews yesterday on the Strathtyrum course. It was the second of our 9:9 Golf events where only your best nine holes count – you forget about the bad ones! 
9:9 Golf allows you to play with absolute freedom and go for every shot; it is a very attacking game and you need a lot of birdies to win. Greg Dalziel had the best score of the day with his three birdies in his best 9 score of 29.
Connor McKinney had a two-under 30 to win the U14 section. The rapidly improving Aamar Saleem won the U12 section again with 32 which was equalled by Cameron Johnstone.
The new 9:9 format has been devised to make the juniors aware of their best performance state and show them what they are really capable of when playing with freedom. 
9:9 also raises the enjoyment level from that normally seen in junior stroke-play events. Judging by their reactions it certainly seemed to rise by at least 10 degrees on the “Happy” scale.
I compared the scores with the last time the boys played Strathtyrum and they had improved by an average of nearly eight shots when you include all 18 holes. No one had a poorer performance.
 Leading Scores
 Under 16yrs
 29 Greg Dalziel (Airdrie); 31 Aidan Smith (Edzell), Ian Taggart (Lenzie), Jack Williams (Sandyhills); 33 Euan English (Erskine) Under 14yrs
30 Connor McKinney (Pitreavie); 31 Roddy McCauley (Fereneze); 32 Ross Barclay (Carnoustie); 33 Scott Souter (Elie).
 Under 12yrs
32 Cameron Johnstone (Troon Welbeck), Aamar Saleem (Ladybank); 34 George Cannon (Falkirk); 35 James Gray (Colville Park), Rory McKinney (Pitreavie).
The handicap prize was won by Scott Hasell (Strathendrick) with a nett 24. Craig Jackman (Dunblane) won the putting skills competition. 
Congratulations to Will Porter, our 2014 champion, for jointly winning the SGU Junior Tour event at Longniddry yesterday. 
 Walter Burns
 Scottish Junior Golf Tour 
 Mob: 07951 103 827
 Email: walter@scottishjuniorgolftour.co.uk 
 Web: www.scottishjuniorgolftour.co.uk