What do you get when you put together one of South Africa's greatest ever cricket batsmen, one of The K Club's directors, a member of the PGA European Tour's Board of Directors and a European Ryder Cup player? How about the winning team in the Smurfit European Open Pro-Am!
So it was at the Straffan venue yesterday when the cosmopolitan mix of Barry Richards, the batsman-turned-Channel 4 cricket commentator, David Adamson, who is director of Property and Membership at the club, and Peter Davidson, non-executive Tour group director, along with Scotland's Andrew Coltart combined to post a score of 90 stableford points.
Their win (by a comfortable four points from closest pursuers, a team guided by Sandy Lyle and featuring Dublin solicitor Dougie Heather with Tom Mulcahy and Colm Doherty) was also notable for the fact that it ended the dominance of Renault's Bill Cullen, who had been on the winning team for the previous three years.
Coltart, who picked up a £1,000 bonus for steering the team to success, played his part by recording five birdies in the first nine holes: in fact, he birdied the opening two holes, added further birdies at the fourth, seventh and ninth to help the team to an outward 47 points.
Leading Scores: 90pts - A Coltart (Scot) with B Richards (9), D Adamson (7) and P Davidson (14). 86 - S Lyle (Scot) with T Mulcahy (17), C Doherty (17) and D Heather (2). 83 - D Carter (Eng) with P Barry (15), F Mulrennan (12) and B Farrell (13). 82 - S Rowe (USA) with D Brophy (18), A Brady (11) and H McCullough (15) (on countback); G Orr (Scot) with P Wright (14), B Barrett (19) and E Rothwell (14). 81 - J Van de Velde (Fr) with D Desmond (9), JP McManus (15) and J Magnier (12); I Garrido (Sp) with C Boyce (2), C Friel (11) and M McGinley (11).
