"It was an implied term of the contract that the Defenders would, in conducting the club repair examination which they required him to sit in order to qualify as a member of the Association, assess his performance fairly and reasonably and by application of the standards of a careful and competent professional golf club repairer".

Further it is averred:

"Had the Defenders assessed the Pursuer's performance in the club repair examination fairly and reasonably and by application of the standards of a careful and competent professional golf club repairer, they would have awarded him a pass in the said examination, and he would have been elected to membership of the Association".

"the manual explicitly opens up the possibility that on deciding what the proper dimensions of the hole should be, any reasonably skilled golf club repairer could determine within reason what size of drill should be regarded as suitable, depending on the circumstances and experience. So, while the manual suggests that a hole 1/2 inch in diameter is recommended, I accepted the evidence of most of the witnesses (Mr Barton being the only exception) that the pursuer could not be faulted for selecting a drill of ⅜ inch in diameter when deciding to drill the first hole".

"the majority of expert witnesses consider that in appropriate circumstances a second hole may be drilled, and while the location selected by the pursuer might have had a minor effect in the way in which the club performed, such a consequence would only be of significance to a particularly skilled player".

"Colin used wrong sized drills - let the lead go hard whilst pouring - instead of putting right his mistake drilled another hole in the wrong position - a lot more thought is needed with reference to application of correct techniques."

"The Report made three criticisms of the Pursuer's performance in said examination: (a) that he had used the wrong drill size; (b) that he had let the lead go hard while pouring; and (c) that he drilled a further cavity to add more weight rather than drilling out the first cavity made by him and refilling it. None of these criticisms was justified by the provisions of the Training Manual or by reference to the standards of a competent and careful professional golf club repairer".

"In the circumstances condescended upon, the Pursuer carried out satisfactorily the operation of adding the required weight to the club. No method used by him was forbidden by the Training Manual. No method used by him would not have been adopted by a careful and competent professional golf club repairer".

"While there are therefore undoubtedly valid complaints made by the pursuer about the defenders' conduct in assessing his performance and the nature of the test which he was obliged to carry out, the pursuer has not in my opinion done enough in this case to demonstrate that but for the failures by the defenders in assessing his performance he would have passed the test. I accept that Mr Barton made mistakes on the question of the size of the drill to be used in the operation, that he made further blunders in marking and selecting exercises for the task, and that generally there were other mistakes in the course of the examination. I also discount the fact that the pursuer may have left screws proud of the plate. But on the other hand, his failure to drill the hole to a measured depth on two occasions, his failure to heat and pour the lead properly, and his failure to provide a dam to contain any excess lead, were significant failures in the context of this examination. I have therefore concluded that, on the basis of these departures from the manual alone, the pursuer would still, regrettably, have failed this part of the test. It seemed to me that these aberrations were of significance, and that they cannot be said to be consistent with the standards of a reasonably careful and competent golf club repairer. The evidence of Mr Barton and Mr Harling in particular in this respect seemed to me to be crucial, and while Mr Barton plainly made a number of errors, nonetheless his view that the kind of mistake admittedly made by the pursuer would have been sufficient to fail him carried convincing effect. While it is true that the pursuer achieved the desired result of an increase of four swing weights in the club, the evidence of that aspect of the case seemed to me to be quite unsatisfactory, and I concluded that it would be unsafe to draw too many conclusions from that fact that the pursuer, after a number of unconventional procedures, managed to hit on the correct weight".