Lothians land record 16th win in Scottish Men's Area Team Championship
Restaurant superstition pays off for Kenny Glen’s side in Scottish Golf event at Largs
Lothians extended a record haul of title triumphs in the Scottish Area Team Championship to 16 after superstition over a team meal paid off with a weekend win in Largs.
Kenny Glen’s side claimed the coveted crown in the Scottish Golf-run event with a 7-2 win over Renfrewshire in the final on Sunday after beating North 6.5-2.5 in Saturday’s sem-finals.
Lothians first landed the title in 1978 in just the event’s second staging and were the dominant force until going through a fallow period between 2008 and 2020.
The crown was then claimed again in 2021, with subsequent wins having now followed in 2023 and 2026.
“Delighted,” said Glen of this latest success. “Just so proud of the guys this weekend. They’ve played a lot of golf throughout the season.
“It’s a good problem for the county to have, but the Lothians is such a big county and we’ve got a lot of players and it is always difficult to select the correct team. When you get a result like this, I feel it just validates the selection a bit more and it means a lot.”
Lothians laid the foundations for the win over a strong Renfrewshire side by winning the foursomes 3-0 before former Scottish Amateur champion Angus Carrick beat Andrew Farmer in the top singles match.
An impressive display was then capped by further wins from Kai Laing, Georgie Jackson and Marc Reid, meaning defeats for Craig Davidson and Jamie Duguid didn’t prove costly.
“I think after winning the three foursomes matches this morning, it gave us a belief,” said Lothians champion Ross Colquhoun, who was also part of the triumphant team.
“But, even though we only needed two points this afternoon, we knew how strong Renfrewshire were and we knew that we still had to concentrate on our own game and move forward into the afternoon.”
Asked about the team spirit, he said, smiling: “Oh, unbelievable” I was actually in charge of booking the restaurants this weekend.
“We had a great night on Friday night after the practice round when we’d done all the hard work on Friday and everyone wanted to have the same restaurant at the same time with the same seats on the Saturday night.
“We didn’t want to change anything - and I guess it’s worked well!”