Golf: Eightsome reel boosts West Linton

It came at Murrayfield and piled on the misery for the home team, who are having a tough campaign after showing signs of promise last season.

West Linton were without team manager Simon Mackenzie, but they didn’t miss the former Scottish champion on this occasion.

“The 8-0 scoreline was a brilliant result away from home,” admitted the deputising John McWilliams.

It was a match to remember for two reasons for Nick Barr as he recorded a hole-in-one at the second with a 9-iron. That helped him complete 13 holes in four-under as he beat Kenny Cumming 6 and 5.

In a tighter affair, Stephen Smith edged out Alan Daley at the 18th to extend his winning run this season to six straight matches. “The race for top spot in Section B is now quite intriguing,” added McWilliams. “We currently hold a four-point lead over an excellent Bruntsfield Links side.

“However, they have two games in hand and we fully expect the final outcome to go right to the wire.”

Murrayfield’s David Marshall described his team’s peformance as “lacklustre”. He added: “It’s annoying after the team had shown some promise last season to now be having such a poor one so far.

“But we are still hoping for a few good results before the end of the season.”

In their latest outing, Bruntsfield Links made hard work of winning at home against Ratho Park, the home team having Kevin Cattanach to thank for securing the vital half against Gregor Drummond.

“It was a disappointing performance from our team and we will have to improve for an important match at Swanston,” said Bruntsfield Links team manager Dougie Livingstone.

Kingsknowe came close to matching West Linton’s feat as Bill Buchan’s side stepped up their challenge for a quarter-final spot with a 7-1 win at Prestonfield.

“While the eventual result was emphatic, it was certainly not the way it was on the golf course,” admitted Buchan.

“Indeed, at one point it looked like we may struggle as we were well behind in four games and level in one.

“However, we really dug in and the guys at the back deserve a lot of credit for staying patient and putting together some great figures on the back nine.

“We are beginning to display the first signs of some good form, but there are still a lot of tough games ahead.”

Prestonfield were spared the whitewash by team manager Alan McEwan, who stepped in as a late replacement for club champion Arran McHardy and beat Gary Malone at the bottom of the order.

In the same section, Liberton made home advantage count to keep up their challenge with a 7-1 win over Craigmillar Park.

Anthony Blaney set the tone as he made it six wins out of six this season, while other points for the home side were delivered by Robert Jack and Ross Munro.

Those three have now contributed an impressive 16 points out of 18 so far this season.

In Section A, Silverknowes had mixed fortunes as they played twice in three nights.

First they bounced from losing at Baberton with a 5-3 win at Royal Musselburgh, where Ian Doig made a great up and down at the last after his tee shot ended up behind a tree for a half.

But that good work was then undone by a 5-3 home defeat at the hands of Dalmahoy, who recovered well after losing the top three matches in that one.

Lothianburn now need to win their next four matches to have a slim hope of qualifying after being held at home by Newbattle.

Scott Stables birdied the last three holes to win his match for the visitors, for whom Graham Reid drove his tee shot 356 yards on the downhill par-5 14th on his way to beating Richard Nisbet.