Evenin’ all. It was a case of Dixon of the final green at the Aberdeen Standard Investments Scottish Par 3 Championship last night, writes Nick Rodger.
It may have been a shortened format but David Dixon had to go the full distance as he edged to a one shot victory over Stephen Gray at the Paul Lawrie Golf Centre in Aberdeen.
With Dixon failing to make his par on the last, Tartan Tour stalwart Gray stood over a three-footer to force a play-off.
But his putt birled round the cup and popped out leaving Dixon with a tap-in to plunder the £3750 top prize.
The former European Tour winner closed with a three-under 51 over two loops of the nine-hole course for a three-under 105 and a slender victory over the luckless Gray.
“I was about to say ‘good putt’ to Stevie when it did a horrible horseshoe,” said Dixon, who was the silver medal winner in the 2001 Open at Royal Lytham.
“It wasn’t a nice way for him to finish after playing so well. But this was a nice way for things to turn out for me. I’m well chuffed about that as I’ve had a really good few days.”
It had been a nip-and-tuck tussle between the two leaders over the closing 18 holes and the overnight leader Gray put up stubborn resistance as he trundled in a raking birdie putt of some 80 feet on the fifth – his 14th – to keep himself very much in the title picture.
The Glasgow man’s ambitions took a dunt on the penultimate hole, however, when he came up short with his dink to the green and made bogey before the golfing gods dealt him a sore one on the last as he posted a 54.
“I thought it was in and started just walking to it but these things happen in golf,” said Gray.
Craig Lawrie, son of the tournament host, was third on 109 while Heather MacRae was the pick of the girls in a share of seventh.
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