Sundborg & Brown tighten grip on West of Scotland Trophy

Jordan Sundborg & Penny Brown (both Stirling) are the overnight leaders after the second round of the 14^th West of Scotland Trophy.

The weather at Western Gailes once again precluded any low scoring and it was a challenge just to stay on your feet, let alone tame the very challenging course.

Brown once again used the back nine to shoot a best of the day round, a 77 one shot better than her first day performance and the only round under 80 in the field. Despite a triple bogey on the par 3 7^th that owed more to the weather and soft conditions than her golf, Penny picked up two birdies on the way in for a level par final 10 holes.

Chasing Brown down on the final day will be two Stirling team mates as Hazel MacGarvie (+19) and Fraser Mirren (+25) are her two closest competitors. MacGarvie found the going tougher than yesterday with seven dropped shots on her front nine not being offset with the birdies of the first day. Fraser was seven over through the first five holes before a birdie at 6 steadied the ship. While she continued to drop shots over the remainder of her round, her battling performance left her one shot ahead of St Andrew’s Kirsten Brown.

In the men’s competition, Sundborg has opened up a 3 stroke lead over Kieran Quinn (West of Scotland) with a trio of golfers a further two strokes back. As in the women’s competition, the aim of the day was to merely avoid too many high scores, knowing that the conditions would take care of the opposition. While only recording one birdie, at 8, Jordan only recorded one score worse than bogey in his 78 to leave him at a scarcely believable +8 for the tournament.

Quinn backed up his solid first round with a six over 77 to sit three back from the lead. A birdie at 10 was the highlight of a back nine that only featured two bogeys, a tremendous effort in the weather.

Amongst the trio in 3^rd, the big movers were Colin Edgar (Stirling) and Conor Rochon (St Andrews) who shot field-best 75s (matched by Edgar’s team mate Daniel Morris) to sit level with Alasdair McDougal (Stirling) at +13.

The highlight from the field though came from Yaseen Le Falher (Durham) who defied the golfing gods in following up a birdie at 8 with a 100 yard hole out for eagle at 9!

In the team competitions, both Stirling 1^st teams are comfortably clear of nearest competitors heading into the final round, the men holding an eight shots clear and the women 24.

The final round starts from 0900 with full scores and tee times available from GolfBox.