Nairn Golf Club come out on right side of rivalries with Moray and Forres to win 2024 Northern Counties Championship at Royal Aberdeen
Nairn Golf Club won the Northern Counties Championship for the first time in five years.
Andrew Burgess, Scott Lawrie, Ewan Cuthbert and Finlay Wickenden travelled through to Royal Aberdeen for the 2024 edition of the competition, which sees the squad split into two pairs whose matchplay results are aggregated to determine the overall winner.
Last time Nairn came out on top against teams from across the Highlands, Moray and Aberdeenshire was in 2019, when the championship was held at Nairn, so it felt like a big moment to go on the road and come back with the trophy.
“For golf clubs around the north and north east of Scotland, it’s a date in the diary that’s one of the first you look for,” scratch team captain Burgess explained.
“It was good to go and do it away from home to bring the trophy back to the club.
“It’s a huge achievement from the boys, because it was a young team this year. I was the oldest of the four boys at 29, and the three other guys in the team are all a good bit younger than me.
“It came down to the last three holes in the last three matches, they were all really tight. It was the two boys behind us, Finlay and Ewan, who brought it home for us really in each match.
“We played Moray in the semi finals, which is somewhat a rivalry locally. We come up against them a few times a year, and they’ve had our number recently, so it was good to get one over on them. It was similar against Forres in the final as well.
“You could probably ask all four of us, and on our day we would give ourselves a chance but we might not have totally expected to win.
“Our half of the draw was probably the harder side, but once you’re out on the course anyone can beat anyone. The boys did a great job of sticking to their jobs and playing all the way to the last putt on the last hole, and that proved critical over the last few rounds.”
The Northern Counties Championship dates back to 1900, with Nairn having a solid modern record in the competition with six wins since 2004.
However, with it being such an unusual format on the golfing calendar and having been a few years since Nairn claimed the trophy, they did not expect to be favourites for the silverware.
That might change next year, though, as Nairn go in as defending champions back on their home course.
“You kind of know who the best players in each club are, but you’re playing a format where you have to rely on your partner quite a lot,” Burgess added.
“You can pick out the clubs who are the best, but we don’t play an awful lot of golf against the teams further east than Lossiemouth.
“Clubs like Fraserburgh and Cruden Bay, and Aberdeen and Peterhead, we don’t play against them much so we don’t know how strong they are.
“You just have to go on recency to pick out favourites – who got to the final last year, or who did well at that course last time around.
“Nairn are a strong team, and we like to think we would have been in the conversation, but I don’t think we would have been the favourites this year.
“Next year it’s actually back at Nairn, so it’s certainly good to have an opportunity to defend the title at our home ground.
“I’m quite looking forward to that. It’s an honour to represent the club, but it’s always good when you can bring some silverware home as well.”
