The winning Angus squad at Blairgowrie with the North Division trophy. Image by courtesy of Dawn Butchart of PandK.

Angus win North Division title for first time since 1999

Angus clinched the North Division women’s inter-county women’s team golf championship at Blairgowrie today  with a 5 1/2-3 ½ win over Northern Counties, the defending champions and last year’s Scottsh title winners.
With three wins out of three, Angus are divisional champions for only the third time in the past three decades. They last won in 1999 and before that in 1984.
The victory at Blairgowrie sends Angus to the Scottish county finals at Bothwell Castle golf club from Friday to Sunday, September 17 to 19.
Renfrewshire will be there also as West Division champions.
Northern Counties needed to beat Angus in the final match to pip the table-toppers but Angus were virtually home and dry when they made a 3-0 clean sweep of the morning foursomes. Northern Counties took the singles 3 ½-2 ½ but it was too little too late.
Angus’s most successful competitors over the three days were the Carnoustie trio of Claire Penman 5pt, county champion Ailsa Summers with 4 ½ and Fiona Gilbert with 4pt.
Aberdeenshire scored their first win in their final match, beating Perth & Kinross 5-4.
That gave Shire the same number of overall points (1 ½) as Northern Counties but the Highlanders gained second place on an individual games countback.
Northern Counties were best served by Mary Smith (Tain) and Alison Bartlett (Royal Dornoch) with 4pt apiece.
Aberdeenshire’s top points earners were county champion Sammy Leslie (Westhill) with 3 1/2pt and Sara Mathieson (Royal Mussellburgh) and young debutante Rachel Polson (Peterculter), both with 3pt.
Scotland international Emily Ogilvy (Auchterarder), who caddied for Kelsey MacDonald in the early match-play rounds of the British women’s championship at Ganton last week, before heading north for Blairgowrie, was Perth and Kinross’s most successful player with 4 1/2pt, just ahead of Fiona Ramsay with 4pt.
Third day results’
ABERDEENSHIRE 5, PERTH AND KINROSS 4
Foursomes (2-1)
Sammy Leslie and Sara Mathieson lost to Emily Ogilvy and Fiona Ramsay 1 hole.
Carol Wilson and Rachel Polson bt Laura Walker and Alexandra Bushby 3 and 1.
Fiona Hay and Zibby Brown bt Jacqueline Sneddon and Jillian Milne 2 holes.
Singles (3-3)
Leslie bt Walker 4 and 3.
Wilson lost to Ramsay 2 holes.
Sheena Wood lost to Sneddon 4 and 3.
Plson halved with Gwen Lambie.
Mathieson bt Jane Yellowlees 6 and 4.
Brown halved with Ogilvy.

ANGUS 5 ½, NORTHERN COUNTIES 3 1/2
Foursomes (3-0)
Ailsa Summers and Ann Ramsay bt Sammy Vass and Ann Ryan 4 and 2.
Claire Penman and Ashley Smith by Cara Gruber and Eilidh McKay 6 and 5.
Fiona Gilbert and Jessica Meek bt Mary Smith and Alison Bartlett 2 and 1.
Singles (2 ½-3 ½)
Summers bt Gruber 4 and 3.
Penman lost to M Smith 1 hole.
Jackie Brown halved with Vass.
A Smith bt Pam McKay 5 and 4.
Gilbert lost to Bartlett 1 hole.
A Ramsay lost to Ryan 1 hole.
FINAL PLACINGS
1 Angus 3pt, 2 Northern Counties 1 ½ pt (better games-won record), 3 Aberdeenshire 1 ½, 4 Perth and Kinross 0pt.