Stephen’s day at Portstewart

The eleven handicapper, while scoring no birdies, left very few shots behind him in compiling 17 points from the first eight of the Winter Strand Course layout. With two and three being closed you get index nine, five and one to start with and this was the stretch where Stephen dropped three shots early on.

Recovery was made however with just two more shots being dropped to par with fives at nine and ten. After the turn Stephen really settled down to play the last eight in one over par. The shot dropped came as a four at the short twelfth. An impressive finish of three pars brought him nine points for his back eight score of 20, 37 overall, to pip John Taylor to the post.

John scored 37 as well but that 20 points from the final eight was too much to beat in countback. The four handicapper was out in 33 shots and this represented 18 points for the card. The difficult eleventh gave up a birdy three and the long fourteenth a birdy four to see John come back in two under par 31 giving the card a 19 points boost.

Just a single point back was Paul Hewitt with 36 points from his eleven handicap. The long par four fifth took two shots from Paul but he hit back instantly with a two at the sixth and, with two bogies to end the outward eight 19 points were gained. Steady scoring started the back eight but a wee slip for a six and one point at seventeen saw just 17 points recorded and Paul finished third.