TRIPLE WINNER HODGSON IN ENGLAND TRIO FOR SWEDISH EVENT
 Stiggy
Hodgson, winner of three trophies already this year, plus
his Surrey colleague Gary King and Jonathan Bell from Kent
have been selected to represent the English Golf Union in
the Skandia Junior Open in Sweden at the end of this month.
All three have played in overseas events before but this
will be their first involvement in this championship, which
also has a girls competition, and is being played at the Delsjo
Golfklubb, near Gothenburg on 23rd - 25th May.
Hodgson, 17, from the Sunningdale club (photo courtesy of
Tom Ward), is enjoying a superb start to 2008 with victories
in the McEvoy Trophy and the Selborne Salver which helped
him lift the Hampshire Salver for the best aggregate from
the latter and the Hampshire Hog. He has also finished runner-up
in the Berkhamsted Trophy and tied second to King in the Surrey
under 18 Championship, while last year he was equal third
in the Berkshire Trophy and helped Surrey win the Boys County
Championship.
Bell, 16, was English under 14 Champion in 2004. He has twice
finished in the top three in the Douglas Johns Trophy while
last year he finished sixth in the South East Junior Championship
and ninth on the Carris Trophy. The Royal Blackheath lad also
represented the EGU in the Dutch Junior Masters.
King, 17, who has been capped at under 16 and boys levels,
was another member of Surrey’s victorious Boys County
Championship team last year. That success formed part of a
triumphant 2007 for the former Surrey under 14 Champion. He
finished equal first in the South East Boys qualifying, runner-up
after a playoff for the Sir Henry Cooper Junior Masters and
was a quarter-finalist in the British Boys Championship. He
was also a member of the England four-man team that won the
Honda International Junior Championship in Japan.
King has also tasted success this season, winning the Surrey
under 18 title and the Hampshire Hog after a playoff and finishing
third in the McEvoy Trophy.
All three players are members of the England Under 18 Squad.
The Skandia Junior Open is a 54-hole tournament with a cut
after two rounds, the leading 48 players and ties going on
to contest the final round. The Delsjo course which measures
around 6,300 yards with a par of 71 is cut through a forest
with narrow fairways and many doglegs.
England squad:
Jonathan Bell (Royal Blackheath), Stiggy Hodgson (Sunningdale)
and Gary King (Tyrrells Wood).
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