Pow Holds Firm At Dundonald To Claim Legs Open Championship

The 2nd Legs Open finally got under way here after its first attempt lasted only four holes. "Don't worry about the forecast, boys, the drainage here will handle it," the Dundonald starter had promised the field a week earlier, moments before the competition was abandoned in a downpour. Take two arrived under grey but dry skies, and this time the championship ran its full course — decided, in the end, by a two-shot margin between John Pow and Davie Clelland that was never quite as settled as the final numbers suggest.

It was Mark Alston who made the first move, a birdie at the 1st taking him to the top of the leaderboard inside minutes — only for a blow-up at the 2nd to send him tumbling to 8th almost as fast. Jim Yuille suffered the same fate one hole later. Bobby Ferguson and John Taylor both opened with double bogeys, and by the turn the field's average score sat at 11-over, a reminder of just how demanding Dundonald was playing.

Pow was the one who steadied it. Back-to-back birdies at the 3rd and 4th put him in front of both the Main and Stableford competitions, but Dundonald had an answer for every move — bogeys at the 6th and 7th let Robert Hamilton draw level, and what followed was a front nine that changed hands almost by the hole: Pow, then a tie with Hamilton, then Hamilton alone at the turn, with Pow just a shot back and Clelland lurking three behind.

Pow and Hamilton were tied at the top through 10, with Clelland just a shot back — but Hamilton's challenge unravelled at the 12th, a hole that swung him from three-over to six-over in a single stroke and put him out of contention for good. From there it was a two-way fight: Pow and Clelland level at three-over through 14, trading the lead down the stretch. Pow reached the closing holes level at the top, then pulled clear to lead by four through 16. Clelland answered with a birdie at 17 to cut the gap back to three, but it wasn't quite enough — Pow came home in a nett 74, two-over for the day, to be crowned champion for the first time in his opening Legs Open appearance, aged 58.

Clelland's finish told its own story. The birdie at 17 proved the difference in more ways than one — it helped complete a round of gross 85, the lowest of the day, eclipsing the target Pow himself had set earlier in the clubhouse, and with it he claimed both the Scratch and Stableford titles outright. Under the club's own rule, Pow's outright Main win ruled him out of the other trophies despite posting the better Stableford card (34 points to Clelland's 32); the runner-up's spoils went to the man who beat the course rather than the field.

Bobby Ferguson's 86 was good enough for third, with Robert Hamilton's earlier promise fading to fourth on 89. Mark Alston recovered from his early wobble to finish fifth on nett 93, ahead of Jim Yuille, Scott Ingram, John Taylor, David Pow and Iain MacLeod to complete the field of ten.

Pow succeeds Alastair Campbell, who needed a play-off to claim the inaugural title twelve months earlier — a reminder that at The Legs Open, nothing is decided until the last card is signed.