Golf: Carrickvale face tough test in bid to make it four in a row

CARRICKVALE are just three wins away from a fourth straight success in the Evening News Dispatch Trophy but have been warned that Riccarton, their quarter-finals opponents, will certainly not be scared when they head back up to the Braids tomorrow.

On a night when most matches went according to the form book, Carrickvale moved a step closer to retaining their vice-like grip on the trophy with an 8 and 7 success over Temple Seniors.

"We're warming up nicely," said Allyn Dick afterwards, but Riccarton, the 2005 winners, insist they'll have nothing to lose when they come up against the Carrickvale quartet.

"We know what this event is all about," remarked Grant McCall in reference to that triumph five years ago, "and someone is going to have to beat Carrickvale eventually."

Admitting their opening two ties – against Rhodes and Braids United – had been "tricky", the holders produced a solid display to win their latest encounter.

Hitting a lot of greens in regulation, Dick and David Ewen won six holes in a row from the eighth in finishing five up against Ian Macaskill and Iain Stavert, while Darren Coyle and Craig Elliot were three-under for the 14 holes they played against Ian Fraser and Hinton Bootland.

"That's 22 wins in a row – and 25 is the magic number," said Coyle, whose pink and blue outfit definitely wins the prize for the most colourful gear in this year's event, being staged in association with Edinburgh Leisure.

Riccarton beat Hailes 4 and 3 in their third-round clash – Stephen Marshall and Ian Gourlay finishing two up at the front and McCall and Dougie Waugh, the only change from that winning side, doing likewise at the back. A great pitch from Gourlay at the 14th, where Riccarton had been forced to take a penalty drop from the gorse, secured a crucial half before they won both the 15th and 16th in pars, while the back pair birdied the 11th, 14th and 16th as they recovered from being two down at the turn.

In tomorrow night's other tie in the bottom half of the draw, Cramond, semi-finalists two years ago, take on a Stewart's Melville side that looks as though they mean business this time around.

Cramond's top couple of Ian Doig and Paul Keddie were two up then one down after losing the tenth, 11th and 12th before recovering to finish one up, while Ian Randall and Craig Scott raced ahead early on at the back in a 7 and 5 win over Lochend.

Stewart's Melville, meanwhile, were delighted to come out on top in their tie with Watsonians, an eagle-3 from Kevin Cattanach and Alan Anderson in the top match proving one of the key points in a match that finished 4 and 3.

"It is always good to beat Watsonians," declared Cattanach. "We've had a lot of friendly battles over the years in various competitions and there was some cracking golf played out there."

In the back match, Andrew Hogg holed a 25-foot birdie putt across the slope to win the 15th for Watsonians and then watched his partner, John Nisbet, hit a 3-wood on to the edge of the green at the next but David Donaldson holed a swinging ten-footer for a half in birdies.

Earlier in the night, Stuart Smith had hit an even better tee shot at the 16th, the four-time Lothians champion leaving his partner, Keith Millar, with a two-footer for an eagle as they helped Temple come through a tight match with Heriot's. Despite losing the last to a par-4, Smith and Millar finished two up on John Liddel and Gregor Munro, with Temple's back couple of Gus Santana and John Shepherd heaving a sigh of relief as they halved the 18th to finish one down to David Campbell and Dougie Livingstone after being three up at the turn.

Temple, bronze medallists for the last two years, now take on RICS, who had Gary Middlemiss, a Sunday substitute for Mike Armstrong, to thank as they won through on the last green against FORE.

The Mortonhall member holed three successive clutch putts – from five feet, eight feet and three feet – at the business end of the match to restrict the damage at the back to three holes after Brian Tait and Stuart Agnew had finished four up at the front.

The remaining tie tomorrow will see Silverknowes take on BBT and both those teams look to be in good form. Taking up where they'd left off at the weekend, Silverknowes proved too strong for Longniddry 918, the three-times winners sweeping into the last eight with a 12 and 10 triumph.

BBT, a Turnhouse team, had to work a little bit harder but eventually had more than enough in the tank as they beat Thistle Thursday, in doing so ending the involvement of the Braids clubs in the 111th staging of the event.