Leisegang survives the worst possible start to win on debut

Castle Stuart — Saturday 12 September 2026

Five over par after two holes. Not the way anyone plans to win a championship, still less on their first appearance in one.

Steven Leisegang opened with a seven at the first and another at the second, and by the time he walked to the third tee he had given back more strokes than most of the field would lose in nine holes. What followed was the best kind of recovery: not spectacular, simply refusing to compound the damage. Four, four, four, five, five, five, six to the turn. An outward 47 that could comfortably have been 53.

The back nine was where the championship was won. Leisegang came home in 42 — one of the best inward halves returned by anyone in contention — for a gross 89 and a nett 75. Three over par, and nobody else got closer. A debutant, and the champion.

"Refusing to compound the damage" is worth dwelling on, because those first two holes punished the entire field, not just him. The second, a par five, played to an average of more than two over par. The opening hole was barely kinder at 2.14 over. Between them they took a stroke and a half out of every card in the championship before anyone had properly settled. Leisegang simply took his medicine earlier and louder than everyone else, and then stopped paying.

The tee that moved

He was not, strictly speaking, playing the golf course the championship was scored on.

The round began off the white tees. After the second group had played the first, the decision was taken to move the field to the green — and so every player in the championship played the opening hole from the white markers at 360 yards, then the remaining seventeen from the green. A round of 6,183 yards, scored as though it were 6,153.

To be clear about what this did and did not do: it did not give anybody an advantage. Every man in the field played the same eighteen holes from the same markers, and whatever the first hole took from them, it took from all of them equally.

The headache was administrative, and it was considerable. A course rating and slope are properties of a tee, not of a course, and every playing handicap in the field is calculated from them. Moving to the green meant re-rating the championship from 72.6 and 136 down to 70.8 and 132, which shifted every handicap by two or three strokes and rewrote both the Main and the Stableford standings. By the time that was settled every card had long since been entered, and the recalculation had to be applied retrospectively, player by player, after the last group was in.

The first hole, for its part, was unmoved by any of it. Played off the back markers it was the second-hardest hole of the championship, averaging 6.14 against a par of four. Three men made four — Cameron Dyer, Scott Findlay and Andrew Duncan. Nobody made three. Four players took nine or worse.

Connelly takes the Stableford

Stevie Connelly finished second in the Main championship on nett 77, two clear of the pack behind, and by the letter of the points he also topped the Stableford with the best return of the day behind Leisegang's 33. The society's long-standing rule settles it: the Main champion does not also take the Stableford title. So the Stableford goes to Connelly on 31 points, and won on merit rather than inherited — he was the only player besides the champion to break 30 on a day when the course gave up almost nothing.

Colin Speirs was third in the Main on nett 78, playing off five, and his gross 83 was the second-lowest round of the championship. John Dundas and Colin Hart shared fourth on 79.

Oliphant wins the Scratch

Andrew Oliphant took the Scratch title with a gross 82, ten over par and the lowest round of the day by a stroke. Speirs and Fraser Donaldson followed on 83, with Andrew Duncan — champion in each of the last two years — a further three back on 86.

Duncan's attempt at a third straight title never really caught fire, and playing off one he had the least room of anyone to absorb the sort of start the course was handing out.

A day the course won

The numbers tell it plainly. The field scoring average across completed cards was 94.6. There was not a single eagle. David Clee made three birdies, the most by anyone, and only two other players managed as many as two.

Eight of the thirty-six starters failed to return a card — among them Colum Watters, who had begun the day at the top of the standings and made nine at the first. On a course playing this unforgiving, one blow-up hole ends a round, and it ended eight of them.

Relief, where it came, was brief and mostly on the short holes: the fourth played to just over half a shot above par, the eighth under a shot, and the fifth was the only par four that did not bare its teeth.

The margins

Leisegang's winning margin was two strokes nett. He hit exactly two shots fewer than Connelly over eighteen holes on gross — 89 plays 91 — and the handicaps were identical at fourteen apiece. In other words the championship came down to two strokes of actual golf between the two men at the top.

Champion by three over par, on debut, on a day when three over par was worth rather more than it usually is.

Main Championship (nett)

1. Steven Leisegang 75 (+3) · 2. Stevie Connelly 77 · 3. Colin Speirs 78 · T4. John Dundas 79, Colin Hart 79 · 6. Andrew Oliphant 80

Stableford

1. Stevie Connelly 31 pts · T2. Colin Speirs 30, John Dundas 30 · T4. Scott Ingram 29, Colin Hart 29 (Steven Leisegang led on 33 points but is ineligible as Main champion.)

Scratch (gross)

1. Andrew Oliphant 82 (+10) · T2. Colin Speirs 83, Fraser Donaldson 83 ·
2. Andrew Duncan 86 · T5. Tam Sinton 88, Brian McGuire 88

Castle Stuart, par 72. First hole played off the white tees, the remainder off the green. 36 starters, 28 cards returned.