Draw - Club Championship and Millennium Qualifier One. Saturday June 6th. Queen’s. White Tee.
Round 1 Preview
This weekend marks the start of one of the most important stretches in the Dun Whinny season, as the first round of the Club Championship and Millennium Qualifiers gets underway over the Queen’s Course from the white tees.
These qualifying rounds always carry a slightly different tension. This is not quite the full knockout drama yet, but neither is it an ordinary medal. It is the stage where ambitions are quietly confirmed, damaged, or in some cases abandoned around the 14th green. The Queen’s, meanwhile, is the perfect host for such business: subtle, attractive, and just treacherous enough to punish anyone who arrives believing white-tee golf is merely a pleasant stroll.
As a reminder, this is the first of two qualifying rounds. The best eight aggregate gross scores across the two rounds will progress to the Club Championship knockout stages, while the top eight aggregate net scores not already in the Championship will qualify for the Millennium Handicap Knockout, which runs alongside it. So there is plenty at stake, whether your eye is on the main silverware or on finding a way into the handicap bracket.
Last year’s honours went to David Logie in the Club Championship and Rob Crockart in the Millennium. However, with David not in tomorrow’s field, the gross qualifying picture feels that little bit more open, and one suspects more than a few players will have noticed. Crockart, by contrast, is very much present and will no doubt fancy another solid start to the defence of his Millennium crown.
The draw itself provides plenty of intrigue.
The opening group at 7:00am sees Mike Collier, Thomas McCulloch and Scott Williamson away first. That is a serious enough trio to set the tone for the day. Collier’s quality is well known, McCulloch is more than capable of getting round the Queen’s tidily, and Williamson has enough game to ensure nobody in that group can ease gently into the morning.
At 7:10am, Billy Z McNeill, Eric Lambert and David McColgan head out together. Billy Z in a qualifier is always worth noting, especially when a parallel handicap event is involved. Lambert, the club’s resident actuary, will no doubt already have modelled every possible route to qualification, while McColgan is perfectly capable of slipping under the radar and producing something useful.
The 7:20am group of Aidan O’Carroll, Tariq Ali and Paul Kelly has the look of a potentially eventful three-ball. O’Carroll has shown enough to suggest he could feature, Kelly is a man well capable of piecing together a proper qualifying score, and your correspondent, Mr Ali, will be hoping to remain a reporter of events rather than one of them.
At 7:30am, Jonathan Dickson, Michael Page and Kevin Dickson provide another interesting grouping. Page arrives in excellent heart after his recent starring turn on the Queen’s and will surely fancy his chances of laying down an early marker. If he finds the same rhythm again, he will not be far away.
Then at 7:40am, Keith Stirling, Frank Johnson and Rob Crockart take to the first tee. As reigning Millennium champion, Crockart will be watched with particular interest, and he has already shown this season that he knows how to put together a score when it matters.
At 7:50am, Alan Black, Crawford Gray and Mark Higham go out in a group packed with experience. Higham in particular looks the type who could post a very decent gross number if the putter behaves, while Black and Gray have more than enough savvy to make their presence felt.
The 8:00am group could well be one of the key ones of the day: Ken Marshall, Tony Moran and Paul Lewis. Marshall’s recent form makes him difficult to ignore, Moran always looks suited to championship golf, and Lewis is quite capable of going about his business quietly and emerging with a number everyone else has to chase.
At 8:10am, Rob Simpson, Paul Wadsworth and Daley Smith offer another strong mixture. Wadsworth’s recent scoring suggests he is in very decent touch, Simpson is never short of competitive intent, and Daley Smith is not the sort to let a qualifying chance pass by without a fight.
The 8:20am tee time of Neil Lock, Kevin Beattie and Iain Aitchison also catches the eye. There is enough class in that group to produce one of the better gross scores of the day, particularly if one of them gets off to a clean start and keeps the card free of damage.
Then comes what may be the marquee group at 8:30am: Colin Campbell, Jonathan Fletcher, Alastair Cantlay and David McLeod. That fourball has quality written all over it. Cantlay will naturally attract attention in any championship setting, Campbell is more than capable of going low, and Fletcher has the sort of consistency that can make him dangerous in either qualifying race.
At 8:40am, Jim Stewart, Ken Swa, Michael Cantlay and Tom MacKenzie follow in a group with plenty of experience and more than enough golfing ability to surprise a few people.
The 8:50am start for Sandy Grant, David Lymburn, Allister Wallace and Douglas Hamilton is another fascinating one. Wallace has been producing strong performances often enough lately that he can no longer be described as an outsider. If he carries that form into qualifying golf, he could be very interesting indeed.
Finally, the field is rounded off at 9:00am by Stuart Wallace, Alan Penman, Bill Sexton and Patrick Elsmie. That feels a strong closing group. Sexton is always capable of putting himself in the conversation, while Elsmie may well have an eye on the Millennium route if the gross places prove too crowded.
So who stands out? Alastair Cantlay, Colin Campbell, Ken Marshall, Tony Moran, Michael Page, Mike Collier, Neil Lock, and Iain Aitchison all have the sort of profile to make a serious impression on the gross side. For the Millennium picture, Rob Crockart, Billy Z McNeill, Patrick Elsmie, Paul Kelly, and perhaps one or two less obvious names may be worth watching closely.
That is the charm, and cruelty, of the qualifiers. Nobody lifts a trophy tomorrow, but plenty can be won: momentum, confidence, position, and belief. Equally, one loose stretch on the back nine can leave a man spending the next week studying arithmetic rather than matchplay brackets.
By Saturday afternoon, some players will have given themselves a clear path towards the knockout stages. Others will already be muttering about “needing a big one next week.” That, in truth, is when championship season really begins.
