DEL MORAL FACES TOUGH DEFENCE IN CARRIS TROPHY
The Carris Trophy has been won by a foreign player for the
past two years but a host of England internationals will be
attempting to bring it home when the English Boys' Open Stroke
Play Championship is played over 72 holes at Burnham &
Berrow Golf Club on 22-24 July.
Two years ago, Raphael de Sousa from Switzerland became the
first foreign player to lift the under 18 title, while Spain's
Carlos Del Moral will defend the title this time.
A year ago at Beau Desert, Del Moral, from Valencia, emerged
victorious when he finished on 282, three strokes ahead of
England boy international Jamie Moul and seven shots ahead
of the rest of the field. But the 18 year old Spaniard faces
a tough test to retain his crown.
The tournament has attracted one of the best fields ever
assembled for this popular event. Virtually every member of
the England School of Excellence is in the 132-strong international
line-up, which also includes players from Belgium, Denmark,
Finland, Germany, Holland, Hong Kong, Italy, Spain, Switzerland
and Zimbabwe.
Heading up a strong English contingent is Matthew Baldwin
(Hesketh), 17, who will be hoping to add the under-18 title
to the under-16 championship he won so impressively at Sheringham
last year.
The six-strong team of Gary Boyd (Northamptonshire County),
Danny Denison (Howley Hall), Martyn Hamer (Worsley Park Marriott),
James Ruth (Tavistock), James Smith (Sundridge Park) and Paul
Waring (Bromborough) will be back from the European Boys Team
Championships in the Czech Republic in time to play.
Boyd, Ruth, Smith and Waring also represented England in
the World Boys Team Championships in Japan last month.
Hamer is the current Lancashire Boys champion, while Paul
Oakley (Billingham), the newly-crowned Durham Boys champion,
is also competing and will turn 17 during the Carris.
Several members of last year's victorious Yorkshire Boys
team that won the County Championship are also in the field
including Denison, Andy Town (Northcliffe), John Parry (Harrogate),
and Tom Robinson (Middlesbrough), as are Alex MacGregor (Killiow)
and Grant Slater (Carlyon Bay), who were in the Cornwall team,
and Tom Oliver (Notts), who represented Nottinghamshire.
Another who could stake a claim to the title is Tommy Hunter
(Ilford), winner of the McEvoy Trophy in April, and Oliver
Fisher (West Essex), who was the youngest qualifier in that
event and who is representing England in the European Young
Masters tournament in Germany later this month.
Ben Evans (Rye), 16, second in the under-14 Reid Trophy in
2000, is another young international to watch, while Lloyd
Kennedy, 18, (Chelmsford), who has just lifted the Essex Championship
ahead of Fisher, could also feature.
Local interest is likely to centre on Adam Meads from the
host club, who recently won the Somerset Boys Championship,
and Luke Collins (Mendip Spring), the runner-up.
Of the 132-strong field, which will be reduced to the leading
45 and ties after 36 holes, 48 have a handicap of scratch
or better. Spaniard Pablo Martin, the 2001 British Boys champion,
who played for Spain against England at Lindrick last month,
has the lowest handicap of plus three, while Del Moral and
Abbas Ali Mawji, the Zimbabwean from Royal Birkdale, are plus
two handicappers.
A total of 239 entries were received and a ballot was held
among the two handicappers with nine gaining places and 58
going on to a reserve list.
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