A double-bogey 6 at the fourth and dropped shots at the seventh, 13th and 14th scuppered Banchory golfer Greig Hutcheon’s bid to score a repeat victory in the PGA play-offs over the PGA Sultan Course at Antalya, Turkey, yesterday.
The Tartan Tour order of merit winner shot rounds of 68, 68 and 73 over the par-71 layout to finish seventh with a four-under-par aggregate of 209 – 10 shots behind the winner, Irishman Niall Kearney (Royal Dublin), who had scores of 65, 67 and 67 to win by two shots from England’s Jason Levermore.
Paul Lawrie Golf Centre’s Hutcheon birdied the long third, the 10th and the long 16th but could not cancel out his errors.
There was some solace, however, as his top-10 finish guaranteed him another appearance in the BMW PGA championship at Wentworth.
The first three – Kearney, Levermore and a second English player, David Dixon – gained automatic selection to the GB and I team for next September’s PGA Cup match in California against the US team of club pros. Hutcheon could still make the squad with a good performance at next year’s PGA professional championship. The other Scots in the Turkish field, Graham Fox (Clydeway Golf) and Greg McBain (Paul Lawrie Golf Centre), second and third in the Tartan Tour order of merit, finished joint 15th and 18th respectively.
Fox killed his hopes of making the top 10 with at last-round of two-over-par 73. Fox, who had a total of level par 213, could have done with McBain’s closing round of 68 in which he birdied the ninth, 10th, 14th, 16th and 17th, having bogeyed the fifth and 13th. McBain’s earlier rounds were 75 and 71. He finished on one-over 214.