Summer Cup & Strokeplay Championship - Season 2008-2009

Summer League 11 - 02&03 July 08
Harper continues his winning ways...

There were no soggy score cards to contend with last week for Thurso Golf Club's Match secretary with good conditions prevailing for both days of the Summer League.

Scoring on Wednesday was perhaps not as good as might have been anticipated with the 38 point rounds of Kevin Morris and Graeme McLeod the best of the day.

Morris had 19 points for both nines. Pars at all the par three holes were a feature of his outward nine that also contained a blank at the seventh hole. Coming back in, his only dropped point was at the short fourteenth and his 19 point effort relegated McLeod into second place.

McLeod had two points at eight of the outward nine holes. The exception was the fourth where he used his extra handicap shot to get four points. His inward nine was a bit less even but he held his score together well for a total of 38 points.

Walter Rutherford is in good form just now and won third place, after count back, from Alan Kennedy after both returned 37 points.

Kennedy had an excellent 23 point outward nine but Rutherford prevailed with 20 points on the way home courtesy of a par, par, birdie grandstand finish.

Ian Macphee also scored 37 points but lost out to the others with a disappointing inward nine after going out in only two over par.

Scoring returned to the expected high standard the following day and it was Roddy Harper, recent winner of the A&A Mackay Open, who won again with a fine level par round and 41 points. Out in two over par with his only birdie at the seventh Harper came home in two under with birdies at the thirteenth, fourteenth and eighteenth holes.

Jim Johnston, one of the eight o'clock brigade, set the target for the day with a very good 40 point effort that featured a four pointer at the fourth and a determined 19 point back nine that had no points at the tenth. It was this no point hole that was to cost Stewart Gunn second place as he also had 40 points but lost out on the poorer last six holes. None the less Gunn would have been happy with his best competition score for some time, as would playing partner Dennis Manson who finished a point further back for fourth place on 39 points.

Jimmy Bruce came back in one over par and 23 points to claim fifth place from Peter Knight after both amassed 38 points.

Stephen Fidler too had 38 points but, as Chris Tarrent would say, ' Went home with nothing!'

As suggested in last week's report, Peter Sangster has become the first player to beat the 288 mark for an eight round aggregate and now leads the League with 291, five points clear of previous leader Andrew Mackay.

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