Golf: Musselburgh stop Royal’s procession

The Monktonhall men made home advantage count to beat the Barnton side 7-1 – their first loss in three years.

“They simply blew us away and, although we had several players missing, there is no taking away from their brilliant performance,” said Burgess team manager Richard Hughes.

“A 7-1 scoreline was deserved and I don’t think any of their players were over par.

“It is three years since we lost a match in the Summer League – but this was never in doubt from very early on.”

Myles Clapperton set the tone with a 3 and 2 win over Stephen Buckley with Calum Burgess quickly making it 2-0 against Brian Tait. The Burgess man strolled to a comfortable 7 and 6 victory on home turf earlier in the season but was on the wrong end of similar score this time.

Benn McLeod and John Yuille produced the best golf of the night, with the Musselburgh man eventually coming out on top.

Keith Aitken, Scott Cunningham, Lewis Bain and Ian Fyfe also won for the home side with Ian Taylor preventing a whitewash as he came out on top against Tom Cordery.

“This was a great victory for us with a number of younger players, notably Lewis Bain, making their mark against more experienced competition,” said Musselburgh team manager Alex Chisholm.

“Possibly a changing of the guard in more ways than one?”

Earlier in the week Royal Burgess dug themselves out of a hole to beat Duddingston 5-3 at the Barnton.

“At one stage we were down in six matches but as we have so often in the past managed to get over the line,” said Hughes of that encounter.

Elsewhere, West Linton won at Ratho Park to set themselves up nicely for a crunch early- season clash.

“We must win against Bruntsfield who have had a good start,” said West Linton team manager Simon Mackenzie.

Prestonfield had Ricky Myles, last year’s MVP, back in their side at Lothianburn but Paul Logan beat him comfortably after establishing an early lead.

Lothianburn won that won 6-2, while Liberton also maintained their promising start with a hard-fought home success over Newbattle.

Robert Jack recovered from one down with four to play to win his match, with Liberton’s young guns also continuing to shine.

Anthony Blaney, fresh from firing a superb 64 at The Roxburghe, stormed to a big win while fellow teenager Ross Munro sealed the home side’s success as he beat Fraser Jervis.