Jason McCreadie has run into form at just the right time to defend the Gleneagles Scottish PGA championship next week.
On a day of wind and rain yesterday (Thursday), the Buchanan Castle pro came storming home late in the day in four-under-par 31 to share victory with former European Tour pro Jonathan Lomas in the £7,000 Douglas Park Golf Club pro-am.
Coincidentally McCreadie and Lomas had both won once earlier this season, within three days of each other in mid-May, McCreadier at Cardross and Lomas at Buchanan Castle.
McCreadie did well to return a two-under-par 67 after starting his round with a bogey at the first and a double bogey at the second.
Even after cancelling out these slips with birdies at the third, fourth and sixth, he lurched off track again with another double bogey, at the eighth, and turned in two-over-par 36.
But coming home was more like the form McCreadie will be wanting to reproduce at Gleneagles next week ... not a bogey and four birdies, at the 10th, 13th, 17th and 18th.
Ayrshire-based Lomas, a later finisher than McCreadie, matched the par of 34 to the turn with birdies at the sixth and seventh wiping out bogeys at the fourth and eighth.
Lomas looked set to claim first prize all to himself after birdies at the 11th, 13th and 16th but after parring the 17th and needing "only" to par the 18th to finish one ahead of clubhhouse leader McCreadie, Lomas bogeyed the last for 33 home and a dead-heat on 67.
The joint winners each received £904.
Mark King (Kingsfield) was third on 68 and earned £6703.
David Orr, the in-form East Renfrewshire man gunning for a fourth win in a nine-day span, had to settle for a share of sixth place on 70 and a £261 pay-out.
Christopher Russell (RAW Golf Course Design) led the BDO Stow Standard trio of amateurs, Andrew McNamara (handicap 7), Adam Urquhart (14) and Tom Monteith (16), to victory in the team event with a net total of 14-under-par 124.
They won by one shot from the team piloted by Jamie Stevenson (Braehead) with Jonathan Lomas's team finishing third on 126.
19 June, 2009