The Stollmeyers will likely file this one under “for better”.
Seemingly hand in hand down the fairways, golf’s husband and wife duo of Scott and Rae Stollymeyer drove their way predictably to the top titles at the Garfield Sobers Golf Championships, having extended huge leads at the Durants course yesterday.
Already playing with a ten-stroke advantage, Rae finished some 15 shots clear of her closest rival, Marvi Vergos, in the ladies championship following a six-over 78, before Scott had an impressive one-under 71 to romp to a 16-stroke victory.
“It was really very good today,” said a beaming Scott following his win.
“I had a good round today [yesterday] and I already had a pretty decent lead to start with and everything just went from there.”
Stollmeyer, who began the day with an 11-shot lead, hit an eagle on the very first hole and followed that up with a birdie before recording successive par scores.
“I did think today was my day after hitting an eagle and a birdie to start, but you never want to get too confident or too complacent because all of these guys are very good so I was able to hold off the field.”
The field was never really in contention though, not after Scott also wrapped up the front nine with a birdie and eagle to leave second-placed Deryck Gonsalves (73) in his wake.
It was a far cry from his eight-over 80 he recorded the previous day at Sandy Lane where only four players scored in the 70s on an extremely unforgiving course.
But if the field thought the going was tough on Saturday, then Rae proved equally as severe the following day as the opening-round ladies leader simply refused to let up.
Vergos just never was able to make up ground over the front nine, hitting bogeys on the fourth, fifth and six all while Rae had par scores on the very first eight scores to stretch that lead to 13 strokes heading into the back nine.
Rae did eventually have bogeys on the ninth, 13th and 18th to go with a double bogey on 11, but by that time Vergos had long faded by going four shots over on the 11th.
A subsequent birdie on 12 only made matters worse, with Rae then putting the field further in her rear view mirror via pars on four of the last five holes on the back nine.
“It was a rough round but I’m happy so I’ll take it,” said a relieved Rae of the victory. “Out there was hot for a long day but I survived.”
In the Super Seniors, Bill Weir had a final round 74 to hold on for a narrow two-stroke victory over Rob Cunningham, while Ricky Skeete (78) had a similar margin of victory over Michael Haynes in the Seniors.
