SARAH KEMP made a little bit of history at Helensburgh Golf Club by winning the first class section of the club’s first ever fully mixed competition.

Sarah, who was the club’s lady champion in 2017 while still a teenager, returned an excellent score of 38 stableford points to win the first class prize in the McDonald Medal.

Twenty years since the club embraced equality of membership between male and female golfers, Saturday was the first playing of the competition, which will take place monthly in future and will see ladies and gents playing together and also competing against each other.

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The only concession to the female entrants in the field was that they played from the ladies’ tees, while the male participants played from the gents’ tees – though as their handicaps are calculated from play from these respective tees, it still made for a level playing field.

Much to the delight of the ladies’ section – and most of the gents too – Sarah’s score saw her pip ten times club champion Peter Haggarty by two points, and sets her up nicely for another tilt at the ladies’ championship later in the season after she finished runner-up in 2018.

The second class was won by Dougie Singleton with 41 points, while Colin Reid had an astonishing 46 points to win the third class with another lady, Denise Donald runner up in that class with 40 points.

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Helensburgh is way ahead of most clubs in Scotland in their integration of both groups of members and reflects the friendly family atmosphere within the club.

The gents’s seniors midweek medal, sponsored by Andrews Garage, was won by Alan Sloan with 39 points, one point ahead of Iain McKenna.