Stoke-by-Nayland Defend Junior Champion Club Title
The boys from Stoke-by-Nayland Golf Club will seek to retain
the English Junior Champion Club title when the tournament
takes place over the Bracken Course at Woodhall Spa on the
weekend of 18th and 19th October.
The Suffolk side won the inaugural tournament a year ago
and one of that successful side, Greg Hills, will be on duty
again along with teammates Paul Pengelly and Scott Brace.
Stoke-by-Nayland were emphatic winners by eight strokes over
Redditch Golf Club from Worcestershire with Lincolnshire’s
representatives Gainsborough Golf Club third. Redditch and
Gainsborough will also be appearing again along with six other
clubs, Braintree, Dudsbury, Enfield, Notts, South Beds, and
Woburn, also making return visits.
Altogether, 32 counties will be represented at Woodhall Spa,
the EGU’s headquarters in Lincolnshire, and some teams
contain players who have already attained considerable success
despite their tender years.
The Hawkstone Park team representing Shropshire and Herefordshire,
for instance, contains Ashley Chesters and Billy Mills, two
youngsters with promising futures. Chesters, who is 14 and
plays off a handicap of one, won the county Match Play Championship
in style against David Gojka, a former under-16 international
and now 18.
Chesters was three-up with four to play at Market Drayton
then finished the match with a hole-in-one. That earned him
sufficient points to pip Mills by one for the county merit
award but Mills was also among the honours.
The 16 year old two-handicapper, who has just made his debut
for the full Shropshire and Herefordshire team, won the county
Boys Championship as well as the Under-16 title and finished
third in the men’s event.
Chris Gill of South Beds is another former under-16 cap but
perhaps the best-known teenager on view is boy international
Gary Boyd, 17, who will be part of the Northamptonshire County
team.
Having won the EGU Gold Medal when just 11, Gary, now off
plus-one handicap, was capped at under-16 level last year
as well as for the Boys Home Internationals, while he was
a member of the England team for the World Boys Team Championships
in Japan this year.
The boys from Southern Valley Golf Club will arrive in Woodhall
Spa with a special mission – to complete a double. Their
club-mates carried off the men’s Champion Club title
at King’s Lynn last month and they will be eager to
take a second title back to Kent.
The competition is also open to girls and at least six teams
will have girls in their line-ups.
The best two cards on handicap count each day, while the
champion club is decided over 36 holes, the one with the lowest
aggregate being declared the winner.
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