Goadby and Sundborg show their class at BUCS Tour Finals

The University of Stirling duo Chloe Goadby and Jordan Sundborg rose to the top of the leaderboard on a very challenging first day at the BUCS Golf Tour Finals, held at Lundin GC.

On a day that featured up to 35 mile an hour winds every shot posed a new challenge around the historic James Braid links layout.

Goadby, buoyed by recent successes at the Scottish Student Strokeplay Championships (1^st) and the R&A Scholars Tournament (2^nd) set about the 6,200 challenge of Lundin GC (Yellow Tees) at 1040 am and made an immediate impact. With the strong wind at her back she stormed to -4 through five holes thanks to birdies at the 1^st, 2^nd, 4^th and 5^th . Progress was halted somewhat at the very difficult par 4 6^th, but even with a double bogey on the card she was to turn in 36 (-2).

The back nine proved the tougher test, with the unrelentingly strong Easterly gales making life very difficult. Bogeys at the 10^th, 11^th and 15^th were softened by a solitary birdie 4 at the 13^th before a bogey, double-bogey finish took some of the shine off an otherwise very accomplished day. Nevertheless a +3 score of 79 was mightily impressive in the conditions and lifted Goadby into a leading position overnight, two shots ahead of SRUC’s Lorna McClymont and Stirling’s Nicola Slater on five over par.

In the very last group of the day and therefore the worst of the conditions, stablemate Jordan Sundborg showed great power, ball control and consistency to negotiate the course in a +3 score of 74.

Five pars in a row at the start of the round represrnted very solid golf and despite a double-bogey 6 at the 6^th he would reach the turn in +2. He could have been forgiven for succumbing to a spot of frustration after back-to-back birdies on 10 and 11 but held his composure and negotiated the last seven holes in one under par during almost unplayable conditions.

His +3 total puts him in control after round one, one shot ahead of Northumbria’s Cameron Wallace, with Lui Craddock (Bournemouth), Alasdair McDougall (Stirling) and Cameron Franssen (St Andrews) together on +5.

Play continues tomorrow, with the full field playing 36 holes with the aim of making the 54 hole cut ahead of Wednesday’s finale.

For up to date info, stay tuned to BUCS and SSS channels, follow live scoring on GolfBox, or if in the area then please feel free to head to Lundin GC and enjoy the action first hand.