Steady does it for fledgling pairing

THEY could afford to three-putt the last, but still fledgling foursomes combination Laurence Graham and Scott Ingrouille had already done enough over the previous 17 holes to become this year's RBSI Open Foursomes winners at L'Ancresse. With 11 shots in the bag, the Graham-Ingrouille combination returned a 74 gross which translated to 43 Stableford points and victory by one point from the La Grande Mare pairing George Melhuish and Chris Mason.

The winners collected 15in portable televisions and an attractive bowl apiece for their efforts in only their second big competition together.

The pair had joined forces for the same event two years ago when they were among the prizewinners on debut and they owed this success to good, solid play.

'We were hitting the fairways and generally we chipped and putted well,' said Graham.

'There was nothing spectacular.'

The high point of the round came as early as the fourth where Ingrouille chipped in for a birdie.

Being one of their shot holes, the Graham-Ingrouille partnership walked away from the fourth green with a very welcome four points to their tally.

'We were pretty steady and didn't have to look for a ball all morning,' said Graham who is aiming to force his way into the Royal Guernsey's De la Rue Trophy team for the annual team match against L'Ancresse in a few weeks time.

The 2005 champions, Chris and Emile Thompson, were again among the prizes, amassing an excellent 40 points to take fifth place.

There was something of a surprise in the scratch stakes with UK brothers Mark and Andrew Boyd scoring 35 to beat L'Ancresse's Steve Mahy and Danny Bisson on countback.

Linda Robertshaw and Christine Birkett were the top all-woman pairing in the big field of 340 players.