Noreen Fenton wins Scottish Vets Championship at Blairgowrie

Noreen Fenton (Dunbar) won the Scottish Vets Championship at Blairgowrie yesterday for the second time and hence the Scroggie Cup. She last won it ten years ago in 2001. In the first round she played the Dumfriesshire champion Mary Williamson and won by 7 and 5. In the semi-final, she beat Val McKean by 4 and 2 and then played Linda Urquhart from the North in the final.

This was Linda's first time at Blairgowrie as the North Champion. Initially the players were evenly matched and exchanged holes before Linda birdied the seventh and took the eighth, to be two up. The short ninth went Noreen's way when she chipped in for a birdie two from just off the side of the green. An unusually wayward drive into the right hand trees at the next required a rescue club kept low under the branches which stopped thirty yards short of the green. A chip to nine inches was given but Linda then failed to hole her own putt and the game was square. The eleventh also went to Noreen when she placed a five iron to the centre of the green. Linda had taken the tourist route and took a five. One up. The next hole was an easy four for Noreen but Linda saved her par with a lovely ten foot putt. A good rescue wood by the East Vet to the centre of the 13th was too much for Linda and she went two down. However Noreen failed to take advantage at the short 14th by three putting and this was halved. The fifteenth was won to go dormie. An imminent victory looked on the cards at the sixteenth when Noreen hit a ball to the centre of the green. Unfortunately it was not her ball and she lost this hole. Dormie two at the seventeeth and a par was all that was necessary to win by 2 and 1.

The weather had been very kind and although rain threatened now and again, this never came to anything. The Scroggie Cup, won by Karen Ballantyne last year had come back to the East Division. Some nice pictures taken by Carol Fell can be seen on the West Vets website.