SCOTTISH BOYS CHAMPIONSHIP - Ayrshire challenge ends in semi finals

The last remaining Ayrshire player in the 2010 Scottish Boys Championship, being played at West Kilbride this week, bowed out in the semi finals on Friday afternoon.

Jack McDonald (Kilmarnock Barassie), who reached the quarter final stage of the competition 12 months ago, had a 5 & 3 win over Conor O'Neil (Pollock) in his morning quarter final match, to set up an afternoon semi final against fellow Scotland Boys Internatioanlist Grant Forrest (Craigielaw).

In a very close match in the afternoon however, McDonald was edged out by two holes as Forrest grabbed a place in the final.

Although McDonald was never ahead throughout the semi final tie, there was never more than two holes between the players throughout the match.

With the first three holes halved in figures of par-birdie-par, Forrest then birdied the par three fourth to go one ahead and then followed that with another birdie at the sixth to increase his lead to two holes. A par four at the sixth and a birdie four at the seventh were enough for McDonald to square the match but he immediately went one behind again with a bogey at the eigth before a birdie two at the ninth saw McDonald square the match once more, as the players turned for home.

The quality of the scoring in the inward half matched that of the first nine, both players starting back par-birdie-par before forrest again had successive birdies, with threes at the thirteenth and fourteenth to restore a two hole advantage.

When Forrest bogeyed the fifteenth, the defecit for McDonald was reduced to one hole and after the sixteenth and seventeenth were halved in pars, the players proceeded to the final tee with Forrest holding a one hole advantage.

In a match where the players had recorded ten birdies between them over the first seventeen holes, it was appropriate that the final hole of the tie was decided with a winning birdie. Unfortunately for local hopes, the winning birdie was recorded by Grant Forrest who took the last hole with a three against McDonald's par four to win the tie by two holes.

In the 36 hole final on Saturday, Grant Forrest takes on fellow Scotland Boys Internationalist Ian Redford (St. Andrews New).