West Lothian golf round up

Jul 8 2010 by Russell Cameron, West Lothian Courier

THE good weather finally broke with the torrential storms of Sunday and hardly anything in the area survived except the Courier Trophy at Niddry Castle.

Before that, however, there had been some good returns put in.

Former team player Michael Shelley at Greenburn brought back memories of good times with a win in Saturday’s Peter Lynch Trophy. Michael’s 73-8=65 left him three better than a pile-up in joint second involving Michael Carrigan jnr (18), Mark Begley (22), Neil McKinven(18), Gary Smillie (20) and John Hoban (20).

There has been some stunning stuff in the past week at Uphall with a couple of players who played as youngsters returning to the fold and now beginning to show more of the promise from several years ago.

First of these was Gary Elder who had a fantastic scratch 67 despite closing with a double bogey 6 to record a net 60 to win last Wednesday’s Sweep.

Runner-up here was David Gowans, another former junior at the club with a 70-9=61 and third place was shared between Craig Beveridge and Scott McKinven, both off five handicap. Craig, too, though of more mature vintage, has been off the scene for too long but is beginning to show what he is capable of.

Then in Saturday’s fourth Monthly Medal for the Father McFarlane Trophy it was a 75-12=63 for a win on a countback from Steven Roulston from man in form, Andy Stevenson (3), though the latter was slightly ruing his weak 4, 4, 5 close to the round, too.

Andy has been busy with a 68 scratch on the Wednesday and a qualification over the weekend in the Turnhouse knockout event. David Galloway was third here with 80-16=64.

Pumpherston has had its 36 hole competition for the Tam Murphy Quaich, Rab Cunningham came out on top after a tie with 139 net to win on his superior second round after JJ Moir following a great 64 in round one, fell away in round two.

There was a 36-holer at Linlithgow too with members out in numbers for the club’s J MacKay Trophy. This time it was a stableford format with Allan McFarlane top man in the end.

He had a point more in the second round to ease out Robert Dow to second place after their tie on 81 total. Joint third went to John Sinclair and Colin McGill on 79 points.

Meanwhile at Dundas Parks it was Chris Cooke at the head of proceedings with a return of 87-23=64 beating a quartet in joint second comprising Stuart Quate (19), Paul Edgar (13), Charlie Dean (11) and Ian Andrews (18) by three strokes.

Over at Binny the man to beat recently has been Peter Bakhsh who took the club’s Midweek Medal with 83-20=63 and then was runner up in Saturday’s stableford event to Arthur Stevenson.

The club’s Mixed Open on Sunday was one of the local events to go in the deluge and it will now be played on September 5.

Deer Park lost its Hall of Fame competition on Sunday though the Wednesday Medal was fiercely contested.

James McWhir was top dog in that event with a return of 77-11=66, one ahead a triple tie in second involving Ross Dalton (4), Chris McDermott (7) and Steven Watt (20).

Nice to see too that George Sutherland is keeping up the good work after his recent handicap reduction to scratch for the first time.

He had the best gross with a 70.

Meanwhile the Galaday Plate at Niddry Castle has been won by Jim Jamieson with a return of 73-11=62, a shot better than runner-up Paul O’Brien (20). Best scratch, apart from the winner, was the 73 of John Pryde.

See next week’s Courier for more details on Sunday’s Courier Trophy which was won by Bathgate.