EUROPEAN MENS TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP - Stewart helps Scotland through to final

Scotland, with Michael Stewart (Troon Welbeck) in the team, are in the final of the Mens European Team Championship for the first time since 2001, where they will face England on Saturday, over the Conwyn course in North Wales.

Scotland qualified for the top flight in sixth place out of eight earlier in the week, with Stewart being second best Scots scorer on 143, one under par, 5 behind the best Scotland performer Wallace Booth.

The qualifiers for the championship flight were :-

690 (-30) NORWAY

693 (-27) ITALY

697 (-23) SWEDEN

700 (-20) ENGLAND

707 (-13) FRANCE
716 (-4) SCOTLAND
716 (-4) GERMANY
718 (-2) FINLAND

Best individual score was 134, 10 under par, by Pontus Widegren (Ger) (67-67) & Matteo Manassero (Italy) (66-68).

The scores returned by the Scotland players were :-

138 (-6) Wallace Booth 72 66

143 (-1) Michael Stewart 70 73
144 (level) Gavin Dear 69 75
146 (+2) Michael Campbell 73 73
146 (+2) Paul O'Hara 72 74
148 (+4) Ross Kellett 72 76

In the first round of the matchplay, on Thursday, Scotland staged a superb comeback from 2 - 0 down after the morning foursomes to beat Sweden 4 - 3.

Details of the tie were :-

SCOTLAND 4, SWEDEN 3

Foursomes (0-2)

Wallace Booth & Michael Stewart lost to Pontus Gad & Pontus Widegren 3 and 1

Gavin Dear & Glenn Campbell lost to Jesper Kennegard & Henrik Norlander 4 and 3

Singles (4-1)

Dear bt Robin Wingardh 2 and 1

Booth bt David Lingmerth 1 hole

Stewart lost to Kennegard 1 hole

Ross Kellett bt Widegren 1 hole

Paul O'Hara bt Norlander 4 and 3

Other first round results in the championship flight were :-

Norway bt Finland 5-2.
England bt France 4.5 - 2.5

Italy bt Germany 5.5 - 1.5

In the Semi Finals on Friday, Scotland beat Italy by 4.5 - 2.5 with Stewart bouncing back from two losses against Sweden to record two points for Scotland to help the side through to the final.

Match details were :-

SCOTLAND 4.5 ITALY 2.5

Foursomes (1-1)

Gavin Dear & Glenn Campbell lost to Niccolo Quintarelli & Nino Bertasio 3 and 2

Wallace Booth & Michael Stewart bt Matteo Manassero & Andrea Pavan 4 and 2

Singles (3.5 - 2.5)

Dear bt Joon Kim 1 hole

Booth bt Quintarelli 4 and 3

Stewart bt Bertasio 2 and 1

Ross Kellett halved with Andrea Pavan

P O'Hara lost to Matteo Manassero 6 and 4

In the other semi final England beat Norway 4 - 3 despite losing the morning foursomes 2 - 0.