Golf – Near miss for Grant Forrest on Challenge Tour

Former pupil Grant Forrest (24) came close to winning a first professional golf  tournament on the European Challenge Tour this weekend in the Costa del Sol Matchplay 9 event in Malaga, Spain.

The first 36 holes of the tournament were played on a conventional strokeplay basis with the leading 64 players qualifying for matchplay with matches restricted to nine holes rather than the normal eighteen.   

Grant qualified in third place for the matchplay rounds with strokeplay rounds of 70 and 65  and followed this with wins in the rounds of 64, 32, 16, 8 and a semi-final.   In the final he played fellow Scot Liam Johnston losing the nine hole final by one hole despite birdieing four holes.  A bogey 6 at the eighth hole left Johnston one up and the ninth was halved in par 3s.

Grant’s prizemoney of 22,000 Euros takes him to just outside the Challenge Tour’s top ten in the rankings.    At the end of the season the top 15 win a playing card for the main European Golf Tour.    We will continue to watch his progress with interest.