Ross edges victory at Thurso
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THE dry, bright but cold weather over the weekend enabled Thurso Golf Club members to contest two competitions.
On Saturday round seven of the Winter League was played. Scoring was very sub par with the winning total being only 34 points. Stanley Ross scored at every hole, the only player to do so, and had 16 points for the first nine holes.
Coupled with a best-of-the-day inward nine holes for 18 points, Ross took first place by one shot from John Morrison. Morrison also scored 18 points on his inward half. Despite having birdies at the third and seventh on his outward nine, Morrison was restricted to 15 points due to three no-scoring holes.
The best total for nine holes went to Davie Calder who raced to the turn in 20 points, despite a no score at the first. Having played seven holes to par on the first nine, Calder added just a single par on the inward holes for 12 points and a total of 32. Also on 32 points, and taking third place on countback, was Steve Osborne with an inward score of 16. Gavin Souter was next best with 31 points – one shot ahead of Davie Dunbar, Gary Calder and Ali Simpson.
The postponed December Medal was played on Sunday. With the exception of one individual, scoring was poor and over half the competitors failed to return a score. Out in level par, Gary Calder dropped seven shots on the inward half for a nett score of 70. This was good enough to win with something to spare.
Three players – Jockey Begg, Donald Sutherland and Jimmy Meiklejohn – were next best with nett 74 and finished in the same order. Ali Simpson returned a nett score of 75, two shots ahead of Pat Valentine and Ronnie Gray.
After a couple of non-qualifying rounds on winter greens, won by Donald Farquhar and Sandy Reid, the seniors returned to the EGGS Winter Eclectic for the Dave Spargo Trophy on Tuesday.
Eight of the 21-strong field scored 18 points or better for the front nine with Gray (21), Valentine (20) and Jim Hawthorn (19) the pick of the bunch. As is usually the case, the scoring over the back nine tends to decide the winner and this week was no exception as Dave Lyall beat the rest of the field by five points. He came in with 22 points to add to his outward total of 17 points for a winning total of 39.
Gray finished three points back in second place, one point clear of Hawthorn and Valentine. Peter Knight was next best with 34 points, one ahead of Jim Buchan and Ron Ritchie.
Valentine and Gray took 15 shots off their previous scores between them and are the pacesetters in the eclectic with nett 65.5 and nett 67 respectively.
