Winter League wins for East Lothian and Royal Burgess

East Lothian are the Lothians & Fife Golf Associations Winter League champions again and Royal Burgess are also celebrating a similar title triumph.

After bad weather wiped out the first two batches of scheduled games to be cancelled at Glencorse and Burntisland, this year’s Lothians & Fife Golf Associations Winter League campaign eventually got underway at Craigielaw.

West were 4-1 winners over Fife there while East beat Mid 4.5. Fife and East then drew 2.5-2.5 at The Glen, where a 3-2 win for Mid over West left it all to play for in the season final at Kinghorn.

Hosts Fife, with Scottish Seniors’ champion Derek Paton in their side, won 4-1 over Mid but that wasn’t enough to deny East after a 4.5-0.5 victory over West.

Scottish internationals Angus Carrick (Craigielaw) and James Morgan (Longniddry) joined forces to win 6&5, though the other matches all went beyond the 16th hole.

Also representing East in the concluding tie were Carrick’s clubmates Kenny Glen, Marc Reid and Craig Davidson, as well as Dunbar duo Lee Morgan and Kiron Gribble, Musselburgh men Ben McLeod and Stuart Blair and Jack Collingswood (North Berwick West Links).

East finished on five points, two ahead of Fife while Mid and West both ended up on two points.

Meanwhile, Royal Burgess are the 2023/2024 West Edinburgh Winter League champions after beating neighbours Bruntsfield Links 2.5-1.5 in the title decider at Ratho Park.

The winning team was a mix of youth and experience in the shape of Greg Nicolson, George Sampson, John Fraser, Jake Johnston, Alan Ker, Jamie Dawes, Malcolm Pennycott and John Yuille.

Royal Burgess were undefeated in the campaign, drawing twice on the road and winning the rest of their games.