DOUGIE Thorburn’s run of three scratch wins in the North Golf Alliance fixtures was ended by his Thurso club mate David Dunbar at their neighbouring Reay course.
The entry of 47 was headed in all sections by Caithness members, Dunbar enjoying a rare scratch win and two first-time winners breaking through in the handicap sections.
Five handicapper Dunbar, who topped the class-one category section at Brora last November, saw off a strong scratch challenge at Reay with his two-over-par card of 71.
Dunbar made a reasonable start to his Reay round with three fours and then a six at the long par-five hole before pulling back one of the dropped shots with a birdie two at the next hole.
A second two at the next par three was wasted with an awful triple bogey six at the final outward-half par-three hole to take his card up to a three-over-par count of 37 for the first nine.
One of his three outward dropped shots was recovered when he featured his third birdie of the day at the par-five 14th hole for an excellent one-under-par inward 34.
The quality of Dunbar’s scratch win can be judged against the two players who came closest to him – 73s from the holder of the Scratch Quaich Munro Ferries (Tain) and another plus-one handicapper and multiple quaich winner Wick’s Ronnie Taylor.
Taylor for a second time this season was edged into third place as Ferries made only his second positive move to retain his trophy. The Tain member matched the winners inward sub-par 34 to better the count of Taylor.
Following up with a 74 was the alliance secretary Tony Gill, of Brora, whose putter let him down on the inward half. After a first nine of 35 which included a three putt on the opening green for bogey, he missed an easy birdie chance on the inward par-five hole and followed it up with three putts on both of the next two greens to raise his inward count to 39.
Thorburn had his worst return of the year, a 75, the same score as the only other previous scratch winner on the course, club mate Bryan Ronald.
There was a positive return to the alliance circuit by Reay’s Don Mackay who was also on the 75 mark. Thorburn remains ahead in the quaich aggregate scoring, his 75 at Reay completing the mandatory four scores to take his total to 291 – one ahead of Ronald. A fourth gross 75 (38/37) from Thurso’s Wayne Mowat turned into a nett 69 to head the category one handicap scores. With the same nett score from Gill the cards were brought out for the split. Mowat’s big score of eight at the second hole was a downer for him on the outward half but his inward nine holes were two better than Gill’s after the secretary’s costly errors with his putter which knocked him down to second place.
Raymond Lockie (Tain) was woeful at the par threes on the outward card, with triple bogey scores of six at two of them, but a final gross 79 nett 70 was rewarded with a third place just ahead of Reay’s long-time member Fred Groves.
Now ahead in the race for the MacKintosh Handicap Salver is Durness’s Francis Keith. He has already one category two win under his belt and two second places, and with another sub nett score at Reay for third place his best four-nett round aggregate is now 280.
Keith’s nett 67 was four behind the category winner, local David Gray, nett 64 off 12. Gray broke 40 on both halves (37 & 39) for gross 76 to win by two from his club mate Alex Mackay, who also broke 80 and with a handicap of 14 was nett 65. A third local member, Euan Munro (hdc 20), completed the section winners with nett 70.
Results – Scratch: 71, D. Dunbar (Thurso); 73, M. Ferries (Tain), R.W. Taylor (Wick). 74, A.J. Gill (Brora). 75, D. Thorburn (Thurso), D.A. Mackay (Reay), B. Ronald (Thurso), W. Mowat (Thurso). 76, D. Gray (Reay).
Handicap category one (scr-9): W. Mowat (Thurso) (6), A.J. Gill (Brora) (5) 69. R.S. Lockie (Tain) (9) 70. F. Groves (Reay) (7) 71. Category two (10-28): D. Gray (Reay) (12) 64. A. Mackay (Reay) (14) 65. F.R.M. Keith (Durness) (12) 67. E. Munro (Reay) (20) 70.
Not for the first time this season the weather struck to wipe out last Sunday’s North Golf Alliance fixture at Tarbat and hold off for another week the climax to the end-of-season scramble for the individual trophies.
The fixture has been rearranged for this weekend with the same starting times in operation. Just one week later the penultimate fixture will be played at Invergordon (March 4) followed by the final fixture at Royal Dornoch on Sunday, March 18.
