On Monday afternoon, the Bowls Scotland District 7 semi finals were played at Cupar B.C. There was home interest in the Over-55 Fours competition, with J.Cameron, T.Pettigrew, M.Comrie and T.Young (skip) facing Windygates B.C. The Markinch four started well and continued to dominate throughout, booking their place in the final with one end to spare. On Friday, the final was played at St.Andrews B.C. with Buckhaven B.C. standing in the way of a place in the Scottish Championships at Northfield B.C., Ayr
in July. There was only one game being played in the afternoon and the rink chosen left a lot to be desired, as both teams struggled to play good bowls on a dodgy rink. Unfortunately, when Markinch lost a count of 6 shots, it gave them a mountain to climb and although they did claw some of the deficit back to trail 8-18 the gap proved too big and they conceded defeat with one end to play. This meant there will be no Markinch men at Ayr this year, so we will have to rely on the Ladies to fly the flag. On Thursday
evening, in the Fife Top 10, Markinch were drawn against St.Monans B.C. In the home games, T.Pettigrew secured 2 points in the Singles with a 21-19 victory, but the Fours of B.Drysdale, M.Dewar, K.Bunting and C.Falconer (skip) lost the shot on the last end to lose the game 14-13. In the away games there wasn’t any success, as S.McFarlane and T.Young (skip) lost in the Pairs and M.Comrie, Jamie Cameron and D,.Comrie (skip) lost in the Triples. This ended Markinch interest in the Top 10 for this year. In the Wemyss League games, the Seniors’ game was against Thornton B.C. and in the away game R.Marchbank, D.Whyte, B.Bell and T.Young (skip) secured a fine 19-11 win. but in the home game L.McAllister, J.Hay, P.McTavish and J.Dewar (skip) were leading 13-8, but lost the last five ends to lose their game 13-18. The overall result was a 3-3 draw. On Friday the Division 1 game was away at Kinglassie B.C. with victory essential to keep up the league challenge. On rink 2, B.Drysdale, A.McFadzean, J.Davies and C.Falconer (skip) lost only 4 ends and secured a favourable 22-15 win. On
rink4, M.Dewar, D.Baldie, S.McFarlane and Jim Clark (skip) were level 13-13 after 10 ends played, but finished strongly to win 19-14. On rink 5, it was up to M.Comrie, T.Dewar, Jamie Cameron and D.Comrie (skip) to give Markinch a morale-boosting whitewash at a very difficult venue. However, playing the last end they trailed by 7 shots, which meant in the overall picture they could have lost 4 shots and still secured a very welcome 6-2 win. They somehow managed to lose the end by 5 shots, giving the overall
result as a 5-3 win. Hopefully, the point thrown away isn’t significant at the end of the season. There was a friendly fixture on Saturday with a visit to Balgonie for the second leg of the Balblair Shield, which has been played between the Clubs for 75 years. There was only a 7 shot lead for Markinch taken into the game and they were determined not to lose the Shield, even if this was a “friendly”. There were wins for T.Young (19-17), J.Hay (18-16) and B.Bell (19-14), a defeat for T.Pettigrew (17-19) and a draw for
D.Baldie (18-18). This gave an overall win for Markinch by 91 -84 and ensured the Balblair Trophy would be heading back to Markinch. The Fife Top 5 was played on Sunday with Markinch travelling to Newburgh to face Anstruther B.C. in the five single hand games. There were wins for T.Pettigrew (21-
10), K.Bunting (21-11), C.Falconer (21-5) and Jim Clark (21-1) with R.Crawford’s game unfinished at 5- 16. The next round is at 1pm on Sunday 30th June against Thornton B.C. at Leven B.C. The Haig Cup and Medal competition were played on Sunday afternoon, which is a competition designed to test all the bowling skills of the competitors. There are 6 different skills set up and competitors play the circuit twice, scoring points for successfully completing each task. The highest score for 1 round wins the Haig Medal
and the highest total score for two rounds wins the Haig Cup. There was no answer this year to Jim Clark, who had the highest individual round (24 points), but also the highest two-round total of 43 points. There is a Ceilidh at the Club on Saturday 6th July with tickets priced £7 on sale at the Club. Finally, this week the Markinch Triple of Malcolm Comrie, Jamie Cameron and David Comrie will play the biggest game of their career, when they will represent Scotland in the International series being held at Northfield
B.C., Ayr, starting on Thursday. There will be quite a number of supporters travelling to Ayr to cheer them on and the Club wish them the best of luck.