Top man Sutherland leads scoring
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THERE was some fine scoring in the final meeting of the season for the Caithness and Sutherland Seniors’ Golf Society at Golspie last Tuesday.
The day’s top score belonged to Brora’s George Sutherland who had 20 points for each nine in winning the low-handicap category by a point from Royal Dornoch’s David McLean.
Sutherland played the par-three holes very well with pars at all bar the 17th where he got a birdie.
McLean had an excellent front nine of 22 points, helped by a great start of 10 points in the first three holes, including a birdie at the third.
Ken Lorimer (Brora) included a birdie at the difficult 16th hole in his inward total of 21 points to add to 17 on the way out and earned third place in the category by a point from Stan Dodd (Royal Dornoch).
Fred Groves (Reay) and Ian Hamilton (Brora) were next best on 36 points, one better than Thurso’s two Ronnies, Gray and Mackay.
Colin Ritchie provided a win for the host club by taking the middle handicap category with 39 points.
After a good front nine of 19 points, he got his back nine off to a great start with a birdie at the 10th and kept his score ticking over for 20 more points coming in.
John Evans (Bonar and Ardgay) made his score on the way out and included a birdie at the seventh in a tally of 21 points.
Despite dropping three points on the way in, Evans held on for second place. Countback was required to sort out third place between Golspie’s Arnold Bevan and Thurso’s Bob Black with Bevan getting the nod courtesy of his 22-point inward nine.
Black would have had hopes of great things after threes at the 16th and 17th but a blank was to follow at the final hole.
Lachlan Ross (Durness) (34) and John Davies (Golspie) (33) were next best in the middle category.
Perhaps predictably, with the course playing longer than usual, the higher handicap players did not score so well and the category was won by John Chambers (Royal Dornoch) with 35 points.
After a blank at the opening hole, Chambers upped a gear and had 21 points by the turn.
He slowed down after that, though, but 14 more points were sufficient for victory.
Gerald Klein (Durness) had four blanks on his card but played the other holes pretty well to get 33 points and relegate Wick’s George Johnson into third place on countback after he also scored 33 points.
Gordon Kilgour (Bonar and Ardgay) and Dar Sutherland (Thurso) shared fourth place in the category with 32 points.
Going into the final round, Don Mackay (Royal Dornoch) was three points clear of his opponents for the individual award.
Mackay managed to increase his four-round total to 148 at Golspie and it was just as well he did as Ronnie Gray improved by three but ended up coming in just short with 147 points.
