Magical match-play at Moray

           Sunset at the Moray Golf Club's Lossiemouth links

By STEW FOWLIE

The 96^th Scottish Student Championships entered the match-play stages today, with ten individual women’s ties and four men’s team matches making for an enthralling day.

The six single women’s matches this morning gave an opportunity for players to join top seed Hazel MacGarvie and second seed Kirsten Brown in the quarter-final draw.

In the pick of the morning matches home favourite Caitlin Boa (UHI) was unfortunate to be overhauled by St Andrews’ Georgina Hirst, who showed rare brilliance with the putter to recover from dormie three down and force the match into extra holes – where she sank the crucial putt for victory at the 21^st hole.

St Andrews’ Fern Clark showed steely reserve to overcome Jen Saxton (Stirling) 2 and 1 in the opening match. Penelope Brown (Stirling) triumphed 6 and 5 over Erin Johnston, while Susan Woodhouse (Strathclyde) edged out Glasgow’s Madeleine Roth by one hole.

Stirling’s Emily Laws was the beneficiary of a morning concession from St Andrews’ Alexa Hammer who withdrew with a troublesome back injury before the round.

In the afternoon the six winners did battle once again for a place in tomorrow’s semi-finals.

Fern Clark played some very fine golf but was swept aside by an imperious display from stroke-play champion Hazel MacGarvie, who carded ten birdies in 13 holes – including all of the last five played - to triumph 6 and 5.

Penelope Brown overcame a resolute Susan Woodhouse with a score of 3 and 2, while Emily Laws powered her way to a 4 and 3 victory over Kirsten Brown. Georgina Hirst continued a most memorable day on Moray New course by claiming another scalp – this time in the shape of Stirling University’s Mirren Fraser.

The semi-finals take place tomorrow morning with Hazel MacGarvie against Penny Brown and Emily Laws against Georgina Hirst.

Meanwhile the men’s team match-play proved a heady mixture of golf for the eight teams contesting the quarter finals with morning foursomes and afternoon singles.

Top seeds Stirling I were unstoppable against a very game but outclassed Glasgow team – with only a halved match for Dara McGreevy, in his singles match against David Nagiev, to show for their efforts.

UHI had a difficult morning, slipping to a 3-1 deficit against a spirited Strathclyde team who proved very tough to handle in the alternate shot format. Minton and MacNaughton offered a bit of hope with a hard-fought 2 and 1 win over Benson and Crusher, but nevertheless the Strathclyde team will have enjoyed their lunch that little bit more.

However, there must have been rousing words at ‘half-time’ as the UHI team came out firing and soon lit up the leaderboard in their trademark cerise. Once in control of the singles matches, they rarely looked back and went on to win seven out of the eight afternoon matches, with only the lead match of Brown v Fair going in favour of the men from Strathclyde.

UHI go on to face favourites Stirling in tomorrow’s first semi-final.

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