Rankin produces super run to claim Captain’s Day

Alan Rankin, second from left, winner of Captains Day at Roe Park. Also pictured left to right are John Robson, Alan Rankin, Derek Nicholl and Sammy Murphy.

The sun shone and the course was in supreme condition with a few tough pin placements to add to the mix.

There were of course some light refreshments at the tenth hole and some amazing prizes to be won.

There is always that one exceptional round that wins the day and so it proved as Alan Rankin shot an amazing score of 45 points to take the victory.

A superb front nine total of 22 points set him up for an even better back nine.

A par at the tenth kept the momentum going but a ‘ding’ at the tricky eleventh hole threatened to derail the whole round.

With that inevitable feeling of the ‘wheels falling off the wagon’ Reggie, as he is affectionately known, composed himself enough to go par, bogey, par, birdie at the next four holes to ease the pressure.

A simply brilliant eagle three at the par five sixteenth left him on a high which led to two straight pars at the tough final two holes.

Eamon Barkley could have been forgiven for thinking 40 points would have been enough to win it but ultimately was happy to settle for the runner-up spot. He just pipped David Martin in third place with the same score thanks to the count back rule.

Willie Scott scored a very fine 38 points to finish in fourth place with Alan Dallas winning the best gross prize.

Derek Simpson turned on the style yet again to win the Senior prize with an excellent score of 38 points.

Phil Hendrick won the Past Captains’ prize with 37 points.

The Captains’ Guests prizes were won by George McKeever and by Lady Captain Ann Dean. Glenn Nicholl of course had to win something as he scored 34 points to claim the Committee prize.

The front nine was won by Ryan McIlmoyle with Eddie Kealey runner-up and the back nine was won by Noel McClarey with Graham Forrest runner-up.

Both Longest Drive prizes were won by Gavin Logue who hit two gargantuan drives at the seventh and eighteenth holes.

The Nearest the Pin prizes were won by Gareth Jones, David Armstrong, Ricky Cochrane, David Martin and Kieran Berryman.

North West League Captain Jamie Vinnicombe found himself up against it as he led his team up against Buncrana in the return leg at Roe Park.

Already down 6-1 from the first match away from home many thought that victory was beyond them and it was just a case of Buncrana showing up to put the tie to bed.

What an amazing turnaround then as Captain Jamie inspired his troops to a fantastic victory, winning 6.5 to 0.5 to win not only the match but the tie overall to progress to the second round against Faughan Valley.

Next Saturday sees another favourite competition in the form of a Four man Scramble and Sunday sees golfers from all over the North West region travel to Limavady for the much anticipated Scratch Cup.

With some amazing prizes provided by sponsors The Depot, golfers will look to up their game over two rounds with everyone playing off the same scratch handicap.