Scottish curlers claimed a fourth successive men’s title on curling’s most prestigious circuit but it was time for a new name to be put on a Grand Slam of Curling trophy when Team Whyte defeated 2014 Olympic champion skip Brad Jacobs’ men in dramatic fashion to win the WFG Masters in Guelph.
Ross Whyte, Robin Brydone, Duncan McFadzean and Euan Kyle had narrowly missed out on making their Grand Slam breakthrough in the same event when they lost out in the final to Italy’s Team Retornaz and for most of this year’s final it looked as if they may have to settle for another runner-up finish.
In a tense encounter which saw both forced to take singles due to an experimental rule which means that teams can blank a maximum of two ends before handing over the hammer and last stone advantage, Jacobs looked to have struck a telling blow when he registered a two at the fifth to move into a 3-1 lead.
A strong response saw the Scots set up a difficult chance for their skip to make a takeout to claim a three at the next end and while he was not quite able to pull it off, a two levelled the scores.
They then applied the pressure at the crucial seventh and penultimate end, forcing Jacobs to score a single to leave them heading down the last 4-3 behind, but with last stone advantage.
Whyte’s men had never been in front at any stage and when the skip lined up his final delivery, he could see only a sliver of the opposition stone that was lying shot, close to the button, however perfect execution saw him remove it to score the two that won the match and the title.
“It was amazing to make that last shot,” a jubilant Whyte said afterwards.
“It doesn’t just come down to me, there’s a line call and sweeping there as well, so it was a real team shot to win our fist ever Grand Slam and we all did our bit and managed to make it.
“I can’t really describe how it felt to see their stone going out of the rings, it’s just unbelievable.
“What a feeling to win our first Grand Slam.
“We’re over the moon and I couldn’t be happier for the rest of the boys.
“Winning our first one feels like a bit of a weight off our back and now hopefully we can push on and win many more.”
Whyte was particularly proud of the way they had held their discipline in the face of the pressure applied by Jacobs’ battle-hardened, veteran team who have won every title in the sport and had started the match with last stone advantage having gone unbeaten through the event to earn top seeding, Team Whyte having recovered well after losing their first round-robin match to Germany’s European champions Team Muskatewitz.
“We had to really stay patient,” said the 26-year-old from Dumfries.
“We knew we weren’t starting with hammer, so we knew it would be a long game to try to flip that.
“I said yesterday that if we could flip it early it would be great, but even if we had the hammer in the last end that would be hopefully enough and it was.
“We knew we had to stay together as a team and keep making as many shots as we could and thankfully we got enough chances.”
The victory provided further evidence of the current quality within the Scottish men’s game and the work being done on the British Curling programme and Whyte is hoping his team’s rivalry with world number one ranked Team Mouat, who had won this season’s three previous Grand Slam of Curling events, will now move to a new level.
“The Scottish boys are doing well and we’ve contributed to that now,” he said.
“Obviously Team Mouat have been dominating pretty well, but we’ve now got ourselves into that winners circle.
“It’s especially pleasing this year, because we’ve felt we’ve played really well and just not quite got the rubs, or made the shots at the right times.
“It’s great to see Scotland doing so well, but hopefully that continues as us in the future,” he grinned.
The scene could hardly be better set for their next head to head encounter that will come in the round-robin stages of next month’s Scottish Curling Championships (Feb 2-8) on the ice Whyte grew up playing on in Dumfries, where they will look to defend the title they won a year ago.
“This sets us in really good stead heading into the Scottish Championship and going to retain our title,” said Whyte.
“Everyone knows we’re in really good form and we’re going to go back for a week of training, look to do a really good job of checking in technically, get ourselves right back into it.
“Hopefully that’ll put us right back to the top of the leaderboard and hopefully we can get that trophy and be champions of Scotland again.
“That would be a brilliant way to cap off the season, although we’ll hopefully have a couple more competitions after that.”
Images: Anil Mungal / GSOC
