Flowering season signals return to golfing weather

Mar 11 2010 by Eric MacKinnon, West Lothian Courier

THIS WEEK I have seen my first crocus of the year and as it has only been a couple of weeks since I saw that January bloomer the snowdrop late though these are, it means that local golfers will be getting the clubs dusted off and into some action, writes Russell Cameron.

It really has been a terrible winter following right on from the deluge that was the back end of 2009. Some of the recent weather has been decent but frosts have made greenkeepers very protective of their courses and very few golfers have been able to play golf without migrating to the coast.

The Alliance lads were at Winterfield in Dunbar in the latest episode of this winter’s campaign and even Dunbar suffered and the event was postponed for a week.

The fact that West Lothian players have had little golf was reflected best in an almost complete absence of local names in the prize list.

The only man to do anything positive was Bo’ness player Tom Lewis who took a share of the Seniors’ top spot with a net 67 alongside Whitekirk’s David Jeffrey.

Winner of the Paterson Medal was Kingsknowe’s Scott Knowles who partnered Stephen Gallacher in the Alliance’s Greensomes event at the Braids in December.

Scott, a former Lothians’ Champion is now high up in the Scottish Golf Union hierarchy. His 66-2=64 was equalled by Lochend five handicapper David Graham but Scott won on a countback.

The only other name in the frame with a West Lothian connection was Willie Laing the former Deer Park player now at Prestonfield. His 72-6=66 was good enough for a share of third.

If we are lacking a little heat there was certainly no shortage of that in Kuala Lumpur where Stephen Gallacher was competing and making the cut in a tour event for the third time running in his comeback after last year’s illness.

To go out there for a single week to alien and frankly sauna-like conditions (three caddies had to give in overcome by the climate) takes a man with a big heart and it shows Stephen’s commitment to the task in hand to get back the status which has withered a bit in recent year’s.

This week he has been putting in a huge amount of work at the Kingsfield Golf Centre in Linlithgow with coach David Burns.

The big man seems to be really pleased with the job that has been done on his swing and is lavish in his praise of Burns’ efforts on his behalf.

Next week he is off to Morocco where the greens are probably a less mysterious for Occidental performers and we might start to see the Gallacher name appearing high on the leaderboard’s.