Bathgate are the Courier champs

Jul 9 2009 by Eric MacKinnon, West Lothian Courier

BATHGATE have won this year’s Courier Trophy after a good week’s golf at host club Greenburn and a cliffhanging final on Sunday afternoon against Harburn.

The finalists lined up with Stuart Crookston, the new Linlithgowshire Champion, paired with fellow Bathgate member Scott McClory against Harburn’s Michael Burnett, the former Lothians’ Junior Champion and Craig Deerness.

In the second game it was Martin O’Hara for Bathgate with the experienced ex-Scottish international Bryan Shields against Anthony ‘Sid’ Curran and many times Champion at the West Calder club, Jim Gilmour.

With the first game square at the turn, the Bathgate second string were showing the first piece of daylight. They won the seventh after Harburn had taken four to get down.

But it was back to one a couple of holes later with Harburn chipping and putting from just short of the green for a winning birdie.

At the front Burnett, meanwhile, was holing all across the 10th after the pair had made a mess of the hole, for what turned out an outrageous half — Bathgate missed from just over four feet.

Crookston and McClory made amends, though, by birdieing the 11th to take a slender lead although Harburn immediately squared at the next.

McClory then hit a glorious iron out of the semi rough at the 13th which carried all the way to the green and held the surface. This gave his side a birdie and a hole advantage.

It was looking up for Shields and O’Hara too. They got up and down at the 10th to double their lead before both teams three putted one of the next two to let the opposition off the hook.

But Bathgate made a birdie at the 13th and it was three to them and four overall and beginning to look like Bathgate’s day,

Things seemed even worse for the West Calder cause after a good iron by Crookston to the centre of the elusive 15th green but Burnett, having none of it, laid his tee shot at the hole side for one back. Shields missed that green in the second game and Curran and Gilmour rescued one as well. All of a sudden it was back to three and very much still on for Harburn.

The West Calder second team also took the 16th when Curran holed from 12 feet.

At the same time there were two super pitches at the 17th in the first game, few signs of nerves then from McClory and Deerness and a half and only one in that game going to the last.

Bathgate were beginning to look less secure at the back though. Curran hit the left edge of the penultimate green and his partner trundled their second down to little over four feet. Not so easy for O’Hara though.

His attempted run up with a rescue club on the right of the green reached the top of the bank and came back to his feet. Shields pitched six yards past and that hole was going as well.

At the front, however, McClory in such circumstances had hit an impressively towering three wood down the centre of that nightmarishly narrow fairway. To his credit Deerness was on the fairway too, but with an iron, leaving Burnett well back for the second shot. The green here is a fearsome proposition and the Harburn player’s approach ended in the burn.

A straightforward chip and two putts doubled the Bathgate lead. And just as well with their second string seemingly on their way to losing their third in a row.

So 2/1 overall and if there was any difference between the teams in the final it was probably in the winners’ greater strength of shot.