Golf: Kingsknowe and Glencorse forge a path into league's final four

KINGSKNOWE and Glencorse have secured the last two semi-final spots in the UK Accident Repair Edinburgh Summer League and will face Royal Burgess and Duddingston respectively at Liberton on Sunday as this year's event reaches its penultimate stage.

With new Scotland cap Allyn Dick in their side, Kingsknowe won 6-3 at Silverknowes in their quarter-final, while Glencorse completed the last four line-up as they made the most of home advantage to beat Musselburgh by the same margin.

After topping their section to earn a home tie, Silverknowes would have fancied their chances of moving a step closer to a Dispatch Trophy/Summer League double, but Bill Buchan's boys look determined to regain the title after seeing Royal Burgess come out on top for the last two years.

"We needed to be at the top of our form to be successful at Silverknowes - and we were," beamed the Kingsknowe team manager.

If Silverknowes were expecting to see Dick's name at the top of the Kingsknowe batting order, they were in for a surprise. Buchan put Scott Knowles, the Scottish captain, there instead and, boy, did he rise to the occasion.

Up against Keith Reilly, the former Scottish Golfer of the Year was three up after seven, dormie six up and eventually won 4 and 3 when, after his tee shot hit the trees at the 14th, it popped down after a short delay to ten feet.

Playing immediately behind, Dick was three down to Graham Robertson after six, but got himself back into the game by winning the seventh and eighth before staging a strong finish to win by 2 and 1.

Silverknowes hit back to win the next two matches, Paul Ross producing an impressive performance to beat Steve McCulloch by 5 and 4, while Ian Randall won on the last against Greg Richards after his opponent three-putted the 18th.

At this stage, it was anyone's game but Kingsknowe's Andy Rowe swept through the back nine to build a commanding three-hole lead on Paul Heggie and held on to that to win on the 16th.

Mike Robson, following up, was involved in a tense struggle, never being more than one up all the way round. But, after an exquisite pitch at the last, that was enough to claim a valuable point at the expense of Craig Scott.

Gary Malone was also in brilliant form for the visitors, beating Stevie Adamson by 3 and 2 thanks to a performance that contained a number of birdies, while Donny Munro recovered well from losing the first three holes to beat Kenny Alexander by two holes. Chris Milligan beat Graeme Fraser by 3 and 2 in the anchor match but that was too little, too late for Silverknowes on a disappointing night for the home side.

"An absolutely fantastic performance against an excellent side, one that are very good at their own venue," added Buchan.

Silverknowes' Adamson said: "Without Tam Caldwell and Iain Doig I knew we'd find it tough against a good Kingsknowe side.

"Unfortunately, we don't have strength in depth to cover for Tam and Iain. Our guys were obviously disappointed at losing but, on the night, were beaten by a better team."

At Glencorse, Musselburgh decided to backload their team in the hope they might pick up something in the early matches and then see their strongest players do well enough to take them over the line.

Although they were right in thinking the home side would send out their strongest players at the top of the order, Andrew Millar, Gary Grigg and Stephen Reid came up empty-handed in the first three matches against Keith Young, Sean McGarvey and Ian Shanks respectively.

"Despite this, we felt we were still in with a chance of pulling off a famous victory as the remaining matches were close and could have gone either way," said Musselburgh team manager Alex Chisholm. "As things turned out we were up against it when Scott Greig lost his match after the 14th, this after an uncharacteristically poor start and being unable to capitalise on pulling Colin Deans back on several occasions."

It was still possible for Musselburgh to win with five matches still to come in but, unfortunately for the visitors, it wasn't to be.

Despite being three under par for 18 holes, Brian Henderson lost his match by one hole at the 18th to Derek Thomson. This took Glencorse over the winning line, meaning the other matches were academic.

To their credit, though, Musselburgh showed great spirit in those. Scott Reid maintained his unbeaten record in the campaign by taking a half against Justin Lamb, Keith Aitken beat Iain Melville, Kenny Wright staged a late comeback to beat Andrew Wight and Myles Clapperton got a well-deserved half against Alastair Shanks.

"We were without our up-and-coming stars, Cameron Marr, who was playing at the St Andrews Boys Open, and Greg Smail, who was on duty for Lothian Boys," added Henderson. "Although Neil Shillinglaw was absent from the Glencorse line up, perhaps the result would have been different had our young boys been available."

Admitting his side had made full use of home advantage, Shanks said: "This was a fine result for Glencorse and we are now looking forward to the semi-final on Sunday knowing fine well we will have to be at our best against a very good Duddingston team."