Change at the top, again. Mike McLaughlin jumped into the lead in the individual standings at 401 points with a three under, 52 point effort in the Thursday Match Play League yesterday. He, along with Dick Lemmon, moved ahead of last week's leader, Patty Bowling, in what is turning out to be a fight for the top spot. Nine players now sit within 40 points, a good day's effort, of first place. Lemmon is 6 points back at 395 with Bowling at 389. Dave Brown, Joe Gray, Jack Lents, Mike Bird, Jack Butcher and Al Kavanaugh run 3 through 9 in the standings and are definitely within striking distance. In team competition, Dick Barber and John Chapman, with a total of 90 points, retained the top spot for the second week in a row even though they lost their match with Larry Sutton and Denny Wagoner, 9.5 to 4.5. McLaughlin and partner Leroy Allbright, with a 10-4 triumph in their match with Phil Roberts and Vic Wallace, tied Pam Byron and Patty Bowling for second with 86.5 points. Dave Brown and Dick Lemmon had the most dominant performance of the day with a 12-2 victory over Jack Butcher and Rex Hudson. Joe Gray and Dave Strange, with a 11.5 to 2.5 match win over the Byron-Bowling team, shot matching gross 45's and net 29's to lead in both the low net for individuals for the day (29) and low net for team (a sterling 58). Mike Bird, with an 8 par 1 bogey performance, shot the low gross round with a 36. Claiming hole prizes on the day were Mike Anderson and Terry LaMar with close to the pin shots and Susan Fee with a long putt. The group gross scoring average this week was 44.59, down from the 44.78 of a week ago.
Of note: Mike Anderson had two birdies in his round of 41. A double bogey at hole one followed by a triple bogey at the second hole ruined what, for the other seven holes, was a pretty good showing by the big man from Montgomery.
