The Ronnie Wallace Open and George Couper Challenge

Sunny skies provided perfect scoring conditions for two competitions played over the Reay links at the weekend. On Saturday home players teed up for a Stableford competition, the George Couper Challenge. Emerging victorious with a score of 38 points was club stalwart Colin Paterson. Paterson has not played a lot of golf over the winter months and there was definite evidence of rustiness during his first four holes which brought several incursions to the rough and a run of bogeys. However, he soon found his usual rhythm with a string of pars from the fifth to reach the turn in 17 points. Paterson continued his fine play to cover the back nine in an excellent 21 points to take the trophy on count-back from playing partner Jock Eunson. Eunson who also managed to harvest 38 points from the course will be having sleepless nights after a careless three-putt on the final green cost him victory. Leading the chasing pack were seasoned campaigners Cammie Ross (37 points), Ian Ross and Murdo Macdonald (both 36 points).

On Sunday Reay welcomed 60 players from far and wide to compete for the Ronnie Wallace Open. Warm and still weather brought a feast of low scores, with players from Thurso Golf Club in particular enjoying the conditions. Winner of the scratch trophy with a fabulous gross score of 68 was Donald Sutherland (Thurso). Sutherland, playing off a handicap of 7, started with eight straight pars before a birdie at the 9th saw him reach the turn in one under par. Sutherland was equally impressive on the back nine, carding birdies at the 10th and 16th which were offset by the only bogies of his round at the 12th and 14th, to give an overall score of one under par.

The prize for best nett score went to Kevin Morris (Thurso) with an excellent 64. Morris edged the on-form Sandy Chisholm (Reay) on count-back after Chisholm also carded a nett 64.

The best score in Category 2 was a fine nett 66 by Terry Mackay (Thurso), with Alistair Simpson (Thurso) and Danny O’Hagen (Reay) a shot further back on 67. Clark Grant (Thurso) secured a bottle of Malt Whisky for his nearest the pin effort at the final hole.