This year the Cup Final, scheduled for Sunday 24 March, will take place at Dunbar. The club are proud to host the event in their first year back in the League after several seasons away. Dunbar sadly exited the competition at the hands of last season’s beaten finalists Royal Musselburgh, but that disappointment has given way to a sense of pride that the course will be used to stage the League’s showpiece event. The match will start at 12.30 on the 24th.
And this season features a Play-Off for the final place in Div 1 next year. It will be contested between the team that finishes second in Div 2 and the team that finishes 3rd bottom of Div 1. The Play-Off is set to take place over the Glen at 10.00 on Sunday 17th March.

Craigielaw came through an epic final, to eventually see off a serious challenge from Royal Musselburgh, in the WL Cup Final.

Royal suffered from a slightly slow start, to trail quite significantly in three ties at around the half way mark. The reliable Craig Davidson & Ross Colquhoun found themselves 4 up at the turn, and didn’t take their foot off the gas, eventually returning a 7/6 win for Craigielaw at the top of the order. At the other end of the match, Gerry Gilmour & Jonny O’Mara were no less impressive, leading by 2 at the turn, and eventually turning that lead into a 5/4 win for Craigielaw.

But in front of them, Chris Mackie & Chris Ratcliffe returned a point for Royal, when they delivered a 4/3 win over Rodney French & Dean Glass.

The significant move of the match came in tie 2 where Aaron Hall & Brian Fairgrieve for Royal, faced Kenny Glen & Mark Watt for Craigielaw. The Craigielaw pair led by 3 at the turn, but Hall & Fairgrieve kept battling, and steadily chipped away at their opponents’ lead, eventually getting their noses in front for the first time on the sixteenth. They were able to hold on to their lead, and delivered a point for Royal on the home green.

Briefly it seemed as though Royal were in the box seat as they led by 1 hole in the one remaining tie on the course coming off the sixteenth green. But Craigielaw levelled at the seventeenth, and the stage was set for a grandstand finish.

At the eighteenth Royal’s John Hall seemed to have holed his 15 foot putt for par, but the ball lipped out, leaving Craigielaw’s Scott Cunningham with a putt of a similar length for the match. He wasn’t able to hole it either, and the match went into extra holes.

At the first, Craig Johnstone’s approach was solid, and found the heart of the green. Then Mark Reid sent his approach long and right, and Cunningham skinned his pitch some 35 feet past the hole, leaving Royal as nailed on favourites to take the match. But Reid had other ideas, and sent his putt rattling into the cup. Hall still had a 20 footer for the match, but left it agoninsingly in the jaws. On to the second hole and two good drives found the fairway some 165 yards from the hole. It was Craigielaw to play first and Cunningham pushed his approach a little wide of the target, missing the green. Hall followed, with a similar result. From there, Johnstone opted for a pitch and run, but his ball landed on a soft patch and came up some 12 feet short. Reid then chose the aerial route, with more success, stopping his ball some five or six feet past the hole. Hall couldn’t convert his chance, leaving Cunningham to claim the title when he holed his putt.

So thanks go to both teams for laying on a really exciting final, played from start to finish in good spirits. But congratulations must go to Craigielaw for fighting all the way to the end, to add the Cup to a successful league campaign, and making it a Winter ‘Double’ in East Lothian.

Royal Musselburgh 2 Craigielaw 3

Craigielaw will face Royal Musselburgh in Sunday’s Cup final at Monktonhall.

’Law are defending champions and will try to achieve a fitting end to a successful Winter season, by adding the defence of their Cup to the League title which they secured last month. For Royal the final has different connotations, as it would be a nice end to a difficult season which saw them relegated from the 1st Division after a drawn out battle with Musselburgh and Haddington in the race to survive.

Craigielaw have only lost one match all season, but that came at Monktonhall.

So the stage is set for the final. The teams meet each other at 10.30 on Sunday, and there are sure to be some fireworks..

In the Cup Craigielaw were the visitors at Gifford, and proved a little too strong for their opponents. Kenny Glen & Mark Hays had to go the distance at the top of the order, and Guy Dalziel & Dave Nicholson were taken to the 17th, but both visiting pairs secured their wins. There was brief respite for the hosts when Blair Shearer and Gavin Kynoch recorded a last green win for Gifford, but by that time the visitors had claimed the final two ties as well – both on the 15th green.
The win means Craigielaw progress to a home quarter final against Haddington. That match won’t take place until March though, by which time Craigielaw will be firmly focussed on retaining the Cup they won in March of this year.

The Winter League swings back into action this Sunday, at 9.07. The new season gets underway when Gullane are the visitors at Musselburgh. Then defending champions Tantallon are in action at home to local rivals North Berwick, before Longniddry host Glen, Gifford travel to Thorntree, and KIlspindie make the journey to Musselburgh Links to play Mosselburgh Old.
It’s all to play for in an action-packed weekend, when old rivalries will be rekindled and a few new ones started. Best of luck to all when the matches get underway !!