Long-hitting youth McPake comes up short against craft of veteran Fairley

Jul 2 2009 by Alistair Watson, West Lothian Courier

GOLF has become in recent years much more of a young man’s game.

So it is really pleasant for once to be reporting on a prestigious win for a competitor who is a little longer in the tooth.

Step forward Jim “Tanny” Fairley — Stoneyburn’s finest — and a long-term member of Greenburn in Fauldhouse.

To say he was not fancied for the Greenburn Championship at the start of the qualifying rounds is to state the obvious.

But with characteristic determination he qualified for the last eight and went out and beat a former winner in Kevin Coulter before facing Scott Corrigan in the semi-final.

Scott has always been in the shadow of his brother Gary in this event but he has been in good form of late, particularly in beating Stuart McKecknie in the first round.

But again he failed to live up to his billing and the pugnacious Fairley took him out in the semi.

In the other half of the draw there was a huge shock on the first night with defeat for holder and hot favourite Gary Corrigan by youngster Stephen McPake.

Corrigan was not at his best but young McPake did well to keep his head and win a scrappy match.

So the final was between a long-hitting 19-year-old and a crafty manipulator of the ball who was well into his sixth decade.

Tanny meant business and by the completion of the 12th was five ahead of his opponent.

The youngster birdied the next two to improve his position before picking up another two by the end of the morning’s proceedings.

So only one at the break and maybe some sage nods and worries about the veteran’s stamina.

But Tanny returned unphased after lunch — he took the first two for a three-hole advantage and held this to the seventh where McPake’s long hitting helped him wrestle one back.

He reduced the margin to a single hole by rescuing the short eighth too. He could never quite get it square, though, and then surrendered the 11th and 13th with mistakes.

It was back to two with three to go when Tanny — maybe excited in the moment of victory — with a short putt for the match forgot to replace his ball after marking it away from his opponent’s ball. So he had to forfeit it and it was only one as the tension was carried down the last hole.

Both players, in a severe anti-climax, drove into the guarding gorse but only Tanny was able to recover.

With two holes the margin of victory there were tears and a bit of whooping and hollering. A great week for the wee man and there will be plenty more opportunities for his young opponent.

The Ladies’ Championship which is decided by three rounds of strokeplay was won by Marjorie Gillies, almost a quarter of a century after her last success in the event. Most of her golf since has been played at Harburn, but there was still a recognisable glow of satisfaction as she consigned past winner Molly Cairns to second spot this time around.

The club’s second class championship was taken by Derek Isaac who beat leading qualifier Paul Young in a good final while the third class event went to Jamie Clelland. His opponent in the final, by coincidence, was also leading qualifier of their section, Graham Lumsden.

In the seniors’ championship, meanwhile, Billy Maxwell triumphed after beating John Rennie and that completed a bad day for the clan Rennie with John’s wife Anne finishing runner-up to Elaine Swan-Gordon in the final of the Ladies’ Handicap.

In the boys’ event Blair Todd, despite a big handicap advantage, only scraped through at the first extra hole against Calum Brown, while in the handicap event Mark Hamill was successful over Cal Cosgrove.

And lastly, in the mixed gender competition for the Blue Championship, played for by those over 20 handicap, it was Rhys Calder over C Sanderson in the end.

Over at Harburn Jennifer Bryans has taken the ladies’ recent SLGU Medal on a countback from Elaine Wilson (11). Both players had 69 and were continuing some good form of late. Anne Stokes was placed third with her 83-13=70.

And the club’s men were out in a Kirk Rosebowl Qualifier. Here it was “Sid” Curran with a grand 69-3=66 who was in the lead by a shot from two golfers, Allan Gray (19) and James Kane (14).

A weekend Scott Qualifier had some very good returns with a triple tie in the end involving David Stuart (10), Stephen Barkey(9) and David Brash (15). It was Brash who got the nod on the countback after a pile-up on 64 net.