SCA - Walker Cup 2013

Walker Cup 2013

17 August 2013, Meadows

The Walker Cup is open to players of handicap 10 and over. This year there were nine entrants, ranging from Ian Wright, David Houston and Alasdair Adam at 14 to Roger Binks and Campbell Thomson at 20, with Jola Jurasinska, Alistair Malcolm, Brian Cosford and Richard Sparrow at 18 completing the field.

The tournament was played as four rounds of 18-point games (all clips starting on hoop 5) with full bisques off a base of 10. Jola and Alistair each won their first two games, and they played each other in round 3, where Jola came out ahead. Alistair won a very close fourth-round game against David, but Jola also won (against Brian) to stay one game ahead and take the cup. Her handicap came down from 18 to 16 as a result of the day's wins.

Just over half of the games reached a peg-out within the two-hour time limit. And as far as I'm aware only one player approached hoop 1 by mistake instead of hoop 5 at the beginning of a game (an easy mistake to make - I've done it myself at a previous tournament).

Two games featured three-ball endings: in the second round Alistair went to the peg and had his ball pegged out by Ian, but managed to win with the remaining single ball, and in the fourth round he in his turn pegged out David, whose fight-back with a three-ball break did not quite get him to the peg, Alistair eventually winning by two points.

The weather was showery, but better than forecast overall, with some good spells of sunshine, and the Meadows lawns were playing nicely, with an even pace varied by the usual fast strip in the middle of lawn 2.

Fergus McInnes

Results

Jola Jurasinska 4/4: beat David Houston +13, Roger Binks +12, Alistair Malcolm +4T (12-8), Brian Cosford +5T (15-10)

Alistair Malcolm 3/4: beat Brian Cosford +10, Ian Wright +1T (16-15), David Houston +2

Ian Wright 2/3: beat Campbell Thomson +6T (17-11), Roger Binks +5T (14-9)

David Houston 2/4: beat Alasdair Adam +14, Campbell Thomson +5T (15-10)

Roger Binks 2/4: beat Alasdair Adam +15, Campbell Thomson +13

Brian Cosford 1/3: beat Richard Sparrow +7

Campbell Thomson 1/4: beat Richard Sparrow +2T (11-9)

Richard Sparrow 0/2

Alasdair Adam 0/2

Photographs