Fortrose and Rosemarkie Golf Club host 2024 Back Isle Open Foursomes Championship
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Fortrose and Rosemarkie Golf Club hosted the Black Isle Foursomes last weekend.
Scratch and handicap competitions were held over the course, with more than 70 golfers from across the north of Scotland entering.
Qualifying for both was held on Saturday, April 20, with the top four on the leaderboard then progressing to Sunday’s matchplay finals to decide the winning teams.
In the scratch competition, the top four were made up of Ross Naismith (Brora) and Craig Black (Kings); Mike MacDonald and Chris Gaittens (both Fortrose and Rosemarkie); Allan Cameron (Royal Dornoch) and Ewan Forbes (Inverness), and George Paterson and Andrew Brown (both Fortrose and Rosemarkie).
The host club also had plenty of success on the handicap leaderboard, with the top two pairs – Greg Smith and Andrew Howell, and Kevin Fowler and Chris Gaittens – exclusively comprising of Fortrose and Rosemarkie players.
Rounding out the top four there was another home golfer in Connor Shewan, with partner Chris Shewan (Kings), as well as the pairing of Simon Robb (Peterculter) and Colin Munro (Reay).
In the handicap semi finals, Robb and Munro got the better of Smith and Howell, leading by three holes with only two left to play.
They would be paired against Connor and Chris Shewan, who beat Fowler and Ellis by the narrowest of margins.
The final would go almost all the way, too, but it was the Shewans who triumphed, moving three ahead after the 17th hole to claim an unassailable lead.
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It was just as close in the semi finals of the scratch competition. There, Naismith and Black would narrowly beat Pateron and Brown to move on to the final.
MacDonald and Gaittens had an extra hole to spare in their win against Cameron and Forbes, winning two and one.
Their final was the most one-sided match of any throughout Sunday’s play, though, with MacDonald and Gaittens getting their hands on the trophy after beating Naismith and Black four and three.
