Each winter seems to throw up one player who returns a seemingly endless run of good scores to appear in the prizes with great regularity and right at the top of this season’s contenders is Kevin McKavanagh.
His level par round on Sunday was his second such round in just over two weeks and gave him 43pts, off 7, for victory in the Sunday Shop Sweep. After a pair of opening bogeys, he covered the remaining 16 holes in 2 under par with birdies at 9 and 17. His seasonal golfing stocking is now crammed with prizes gathered each side of the New Year, and although Sunday was the Twelfth Day of Christmas, it would seem he has not finished adding to his rewards just yet.Gary Totton has also enjoyed a successful festive season and he took the runners-up spot with 42pts off 21. He must surely have been thinking of victory after 12 holes as he had 33pts at that stage, but he managed only 9pts over the last 6 holes, mainly due to NRs at 13 and 15.
Third place went to Chris Donald who assumed his first podium finish in quite some time with 41pts off 12. An eagle at 4 put him in great shape to deliver a very strong front 9, but an NR at 9 left him with a rather disappointing 20 outward pts. He came home in just 3 over par for a further 21pts, a double bogey at the last ruining any lingering chance of victory. Chris O’Neill also had 41pts, off 17, but with 19pts on the back 9 he had to settle for fourth place.
Fifth, sixth and seventh places respectively went to Eddie McComb, 22, David Moore, 12, and Raymond McCrory, 11, each of them finishing with 40pts. On 39pts came Jim McKee, 3, Greg Magill, 13, and Brian Mallon, 17, and the took the last three nett prizes in that order.
Gary Clarke had beaten par on each of his previous three outings with scores of -2, -1 and -2, yet narrowly failed to win any of the gross prizes on offer. It may then have been frustration which saw him turn on the style to go round in 4 under par and blow the competition away on this occasion, and his 40 gross pts easily won the gross on Sunday. An impressive tally of 6 birdies were only slightly negated by a pair of bogeys on his imperious march to victory.