McBurney On Fire Winning Senior Open by 5
On a typically blustery and at times wet morning on the braes at Fereneze John McBurney chose the perfect day to shoot his lowest competitive score on record and his best score since August 2020 with an outstanding nett 64 and a 5 shot win over Past Captain Morris Hughes to take the Senior Open title and the Peter Thomson Trophy.
John said "it had been coming" and said the foundation of his success was the 3 consecutive pars he made from 10 through 12. John stuck at it despite a difficult start and that positive start to the back nine saw him improve his back nine score by 7 versus his front 9 in a card that had everything from a 3 to an 8. John seems like a modest guy so don't worry about him telling you all about his round when he's in covering the pro shops on Monday's.
Past Captain Morris Hughes finished second, a distant 5 behind but one clear of the chasing pack. Morris has been a long time member and it was a case of what might have been, not for the tournament but for him to have 3 pars at the par 5s in a competition, he came so close missing a 6 foot putt at 8 to complete that personal feat, never mind, second place and a healthy voucher should ease the pain. Like John, Morris had a game of 2 halves, his back 9 of 36 "could have been 30" he told Davie Droy and I, I think the after round refreshments had kicked in!
John Woods from near neighbours Caldwell was the best placed visitor and finished in a very respectable 3rd edging out the only other 2 players to finish nett under par, Fereneze members Stevie Adam and another Past Captain Bert Holt. All 3 players followed the trend of John and Morris with much better back 9s than front. The middle of John's round being the highlight with a birdie at 12 included in that run.
In the Scratch event Richie Elrick held onto his title wining by 1 shot from 2023 winner from Cambuslang Colin Kerr. Birdie's at 16 and 18 got the job done for Richie, 3 birdies and 5 bogeys adding up to a 73. Colin also birdied 18 for a back nine of 1 under. Vice Captain Clark Hill took 3rd.
No real surprise that the age categories were dominated by those vying at the top of the Peter Thomson Trophy except for the 70+ category where our President and yesterday's official starter Peter Boyd came out on top with a very creditable nett 72 and a 4 shot victory. A personal thank you to Peter for supporting yesterday. He's the real Mr Fereneze.
Analytics
We had 121 players take part yesterday with a high proportion of visitor, thanks to all players for supporting the event.
Despite the tee being forward the 3rd still played the hardest hole on the course, jointly with the 6th, that awkward left to right wind at 3 and straight into the teeth at 6. Both holes played almost 2 over their par at 6.93.
The easiest holes on the course were 16 and 18, both yielding 6 birdies. The 14th gave up the most birdies (7).
An indication of how tough yesterday was the PCC went up by 1 for the first time this season with a full field, the only other time was with 9 scores submitted at the end of May.
Thanks again to Peter, our professional Craig, our bar & kitchen colleagues and captain Tommy Kelly for supporting the event and last but by no means least Kevin and his greenkeeping team for the presentation of the course.