Saturday, October 02, 2010

Renfrewshire pair win Belhaven

Scottish Club Handicap title

FROM THE SCOTTISH GOLF UNION WEBSITE
As the world’s golfing elite were washed off the Celtic Manor course, Ranfurly Castle Golf Club duo Crawford MacKay and Colin MacDonald were battling the elements on their way to claiming a count-back victory in the 2010 Belhaven Best Scottish Club Handicap Championship final at The Duke’s, St Andrews.
The Renfrewshire duo secured the prestigious National title as they negotiated the horrendous conditions on the East Fife coast to record a three-over par 74 en-route to victory via the best last 6 holes to edge out Kinross GC and in doing so become the eleventh winners of Scotland’s biggest participation golf event.
In conditions that seen the highest profile team golf event in the world, The Ryder Cup suffer a seven and a half hour rain delay, Scotland’s Best Handicap partnerships fought against driving wind and rain to complete eighteen holes, paying testament to the forty teams particpating and equally to the Peter Thomson-designed course.
It was Ranfurly Castle who prevailed in the conditions, featuring some majestic golf from six-handicapper Colin MacDonald who made an astounding three birdies on the trot in the closing stages, the sort of form that would have sent the galleries wild if witnessed at Celtic Manor this weekend.
The birdie-blitz was ignited on the fifteenth with MacDonald striking a glorious five-iron to just two inches from the hole. With his tail now up, the Ronseal employee produced another magnificent iron shot, this time a six-iron to fifteen feet before dispatching a tricky, snaking down-hill putt to seal a second consecutive birdie. A third quickly followed after a fine drive by MacDonald left just a sand-wedge into the seventeenth, setting up another birdie opportunity which was duly rolled in.

Despite his quite remarkable run of birdies the modest MacDonald put the victory down a great team effort that didn't let the weather conditions get to them.

“It was by far the worst conditions we’ve ever played in and on a normal day we would have walked in but we’d come this far and wanted to give it our all. Rather than letting the conditions get to us we just decided to enjoy the occasion as much as we could and have a good laugh, which we did.”

MacKay, also a six-handicapper was full of praise for his team-mate:

“His performance in the closing stages was outstanding, a real joy to watch. We played well as a team today and when we needed a bit of magic near the end Colin provided it. This is by far the highlight of our golfing careers!”

There was a tense wait in the clubhouse to find out who was to be crowned the champions and it was the teams representing Falkland, Nigg Bay and an outstanding defence of their title by the Mount Ellen pairing of Graeme Kilpatrick and Paul Bradley who went agonisingly close to victory, losing out on the card countback.

Incredibly all five teams who finished with the three-over par total started their round at the 1st hole in the two-tee start format.


FOR ALL THE FINAL TOTALS,

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