Summer Cup & Strokeplay Championship - Season 2008-2009

Summer League 14 - 23&24 July 08
Forbes and Simpson grab this weeks' wins...

Windy conditions kept the points down in the Wednesday session of last week's Summer League at Thurso Golf Club but they didn't seem to bother Jason Simpson who breezed round for 40 points to win for the second week in a row.

Playing off a twenty handicap last week, Simpson had five pars on his outward nine, including a four point one at the fourth hole, for 21 points and kept things going on the way in to win by a point from Graham Harness and Ronnie Matheson.

Kevin Morris, also a winner last week, continued his good form to claim fourth place with 36 points, one ahead of Pat McVey, Andrew Lannon and Willie 'WJ' Shearer.

There are not many instances of a five point hole in Stableford competitions but there was one at Thurso last Wednesday when Ricky Eunson had a hole in one at the 200 yard fifth hole.

The Orcadian, who admitted to being 'stunned' by his achievement, had a couple of minor regrets. The first was that he didn't see the ball go into the hole although his, less vertically challenged, partner Nicky Doherty did. Doherty said it was a nicely drawn three wood that landed short, took a couple of bounces, hit the flag and dropped in. The second was that he was not able to enjoy the nineteenth hole dram he laid on as he was going on night shift.

Another shift worker, Michael Forbes, had a very enjoyable morning on Thursday as he reached the turn in level par, an outrageous feat for a 14 handicap player, to amass 25 Stableford points. His inward nine was a bit more normal but he still scored a total of 42 points to win by three from Alan Swanson and Sid Campbell.

Swanson only had two bogeys in his round, at the short third and fifth holes, but birdies at the fourth and fifteenth holes got him round in level par.  Campbell, in the same group as Forbes, caught up with him by the fifteenth hole but a poor finish proved costly.

Incidentally, the other player in the group, Stephen Fidler, had 36 points. Not bad going!

Andy MacGregor was alone on 38 points and fourth place, one ahead of fifth placed Allyn Sutherland who beat Doug McCowan, Ronald Mackay, Alistair Bell and George Mitchell on count back.

All of this good scoring had a considerable influence on the leader board with Fidler improving his best eight round aggregate by six points to go into the lead with 295 points, two clear of Swanson who improved by seven points. Harness, with a twelve point improvement moved into a share of third place with former leaders Andrew Mackay and Peter Sangster.

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