After a superb curry on the Saturday night and a fairly subdued evening's entertainment by Dudley standards, the players faced the uphill (literally) challenge of Pitlochry on a rather overcast Sunday. Today everyone seemed to be gritting their teeth - was it just the effect of the obnoxious starter? - and trying their very best to play precision golf. Suttie, who later admitted this was just his third golf outing this year due to a niggling back problem similar to that experienced by his buddy and mentor Tiger Woods, raised his game to shoot an incredible 18 points - almost double his first round score. Sparks obviously had not tailored his usual razor-sharp wardrobe to suit the poor weather conditions, and his sudden fall in confidence left him struggling to score on some holes, although he still managed to salvage 27 points with some huge, straight drives that won him the longest drive prize for the second day in a row. Harper decided that fairways were a place he didn't want to be, but paid the price for his non-conformist approach to the game by only equalling his second round score of 20 points. Jennings was much firmer, although he failed to display the sort of short game that he is renowned for, and finished with 30 points after failing to score on three holes. The old cliché "When the going gets tough..." certainly proved true on this occasion, with three of the veteran rivals finally getting into the sort of rhythm that makes them deadly contenders when it comes to the crunch. Two of the most entertaining players in the business, "The Governor" Wilson and "Doctor Golf" Bates, went head to head in a dogfight that finished with both of them notching up 35 points, Bates missing a vital putt on the last hole that could have clinched him the round and, as it later turned out, the entire tournament. High looked on with tension visible in his face, having at last conquered the jitters of the first two rounds and keep his bald head to shoot an equally impressive 35 points.
After much nail biting and mental calculation, the general feeling before the announcement of the official scores appeared to be that The Governor had shown his fighting spirit and won the day, but the merits of the inspired scoring system adopted this year won through: in fact Wilson, Bates and Sparks had tied, with 48 Stapleford points each when taking the best scores for each hole of the three rounds. The system then reverted to the ruling agreed by the Committee beforehand: in the event of a tie, the highest aggregate score over three rounds would win. No one could eventually deny Wilson the win that he had fought so hard for: a stupendous 94 points compared with 85 from Sparks, while Bates' poor first round showing left him relatively short, with an aggregate 76 for the three rounds. And the contest was certainly never an open and shut case: the third and fourth aggregate scores were not far behind, at 84 (Jennings) and 82 (High).
After a filling and scrumptious high tea, it was then left to an emotional reigning champ to hand over the trophy to the new Dudley master, The Governor, to a rapturous reception from a tightly packed clubhouse.Billy Wilson's Winning Card :
Hole Number
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Total
Out10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
Total
InTotal Taymouth Castle
a.m.3
2
2
1
3
0
2
0
3
16
0
2
1
3
0
2
1
2
1
12
28
Taymouth Castle
p.m.1
3
1
2
0
1
2
3
2
15
3
0
2
1
3
2
2
2
1
16
31
Pitlochry
Sunday1
0
2
1
2
3
3
0
2
14
3
2
1
2
3
3
3
2
2
21
35
Best
Overall3
3
2
2
3
3
3
3
3
25
3
2
2
3
3
3
3
2
2
23
48
Aggregate Score : 94 points
