England miss out as Scots retain title
 Scotland
retained the Home Internationals crown when they convincingly
beat England 10-5 in the sunshine at Pyle and Kenfig, while
Ireland kept the wooden spoon after losing 8-7 to Wales.
Scotland, who regained the title at Royal St George’s
a year ago, won all their three matches while England were
left with thoughts of what might have been.
It was a bitter blow for captain Cecil Bloice in his last
Home Internationals at the England helm. “It just wasn’t
to be,” he said. “The team spirit among the boys
was great but it just didn’t happen for them. The key
was only gaining five points from the foursomes. I felt we
could have turned it around again today but we came up short.”
But Scottish skipper George Crawford was elated. “I
always felt we could do it,” he said. “I was confident
but there is always a premium on putting. You also need a
little luck and we got the breaks at times, especially against
Ireland. But this is a great boost for Scottish golf on the
back of Richie Ramsay’s win in the US Amateur.”
Once again England can look back at their performance in
the foursomes as the reason that they aren’t returning
home as champions.
Over the three days they won only four of the 15 encounters
including just one in this morning against the Scots that
put them on the back foot once again. But as on the previous
two days when they bounced back to beat Wales and Ireland,
this was a match too far.
Having gained only one and a half points from the five morning
foursomes, England again had a mountain to climb in the singles,
requiring to gain at least six wins, and the early signs weren’t
good. At one time Scotland were ahead in seven of the ten
matches but gradually the tide turned although not to the
extent England required.
In the top match English champion Ross McGowan was two-up
after ten holes against US Amateur champion Richie Ramsay
but lost five of the next seven holes to lose 3 and 1.
Oliver Fisher was two down at one stage against Scott Jamieson
but turned it round to win 2 and 1, while Adam Gee, (Picture
by Tom Ward) won 6 and 4 out in the country against Keir McNicol.
But England needed more like that but were scratching around
for further success.
Robert Dinwiddie came up trumps by 3 and 2 against Kevin
McAlpine but with Jamie Moul suffering his second defeat of
the day after four wins, Gary Wolstenholme losing 2 and 1
to his Walker Cup team-mate Lloyd Saltman and Ben Parker,
who was stung by a wasp on his finger on the second hole,
going down by the same score to Scott Henry, England needed
to win the last three matches for a tie and a win on games.
Gary Boyd, four down with five to play, took 2005 Amateur
Championship runner-up John Gallagher to the last only to
miss his winning putt.
That was the half point Scotland needed and they also wrapped
up the final two matches against Stephen Lewton and Ed Richardson.
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