Golf: Drama at 18th as Buckley leads way for Royal Burgess

It follows an excellent 5-3  success at Duddingston in a top-of-the-table Section C clash.

“This was a fantastic win for us as Duddingston have been going well and were pushing us to top the section,” said Royal Burgess team manager Richard Hughes.

“We were very aware of the threat they posed and produced a great performance to pick up both points.”

Former Scottish Boys champion Stephen Buckley gave the visitors the best possible start, though he was never ahead in his match until the 18th, where Gary Thompson stuck his  second shot out of bounds.

Varun Varadharajan made it 2-0, playing solid golf – the youngster was three-under for the holes played – in beating Neil Hamilton.

Ian Taylor had been three down on the front nine but got David Miller back to square  until a costly three-putt allowed the Duddingston man to go in front again and he held on to win.

But John Yuille and John Fraser then delivered two more points for the defending champions, Fraser overturning a two-hole deficit against John Shepherd while Yuille was  always in control against  Duncan Low.

Derrick Williams produced a good back-nine performance against Sandy Gray to keep his side in the match.

But, despite a fine win in the last match by Gus Santana, Brian Tait sealed the points for the visitors with a 3 and 2 victory over Gregor Munro.

“I am pretty confident that we can go on and win our section now,” added Hughes. “But there seem to be a lot of teams in contention this year and we know we have to keep performing at the highest level if we want to win our fifth consecutive title.”

In another Section C match, Merchants chalked up their second win of the season, producing a strong performance to beat Musselburgh 6-2.

West Linton are also on course to secure a home tie in the quarter-finals after they won at home against Ratho Park.

“It was a fairly tight 5-3 win – with Ratho’s ‘young guns’ giving us a run for our money,” admitted West Linton’s John McWilliams.

He added: “We were lucky to get the match played, to be  honest.

“I’ve never seen West Linton so wet and, if any of the hovering rain clouds had burst, I think the course would have flooded in about ten minutes.”

Two of West Linton’s final  three matches are against Swanston, who have thrust themselves into contention as the round-robin stage reaches the business end.

“With three teams battling for the two spots available, the run-in could have a few twists and turns,” admitted McWilliams.

Bruntsfield Links are the third of those teams and they won 6-2 at home against Murrayfield. Fresh from a strong finish in the East of Scotland Open, Zander Culverwell birdied the second, third, fourth and 12th in winning his match, while Kevin Cattanach came from two down with four to play – he birdied the 15th, 16th and 18th – to add another point,

“Kevin’s wife is pregnant and due on July 19 – the same day we have our next match at Broomieknowe!” reported Bruntsfield Links team manager Douglas Livingstone.

While Murrayfield lost that one, they chalked up a welcome first win of the campaign at Broomieknowe.

In Section A, Mortonhall, last year’s beaten finalists, kept alive their hopes of progressing by making home advantage count against Glencorse.

“We were up in six games, down in two at the turn and that’s how the match ended,” reported Mortonhall team manager Graeme Stark.

“I reckon we still need to win our last three games in order to get into the play-offs, which will take some doing in this  section.”