Gloucestershire Golf Union County Championships
Press Release
In absolutely glorious weather on Saturday morning, the Gloucestershire Men's County Amateur Championship took place at the fabulous Chipping Sodbury Golf Club, venue of the English Amateur County Finals in 2009. What a picture the course looked, meticulously prepared by Head Green-Keeper John Keenaghan.
It was very tough with fast running greens & very hard surfaces which took the players a little while to adjust to the conditions, even the home players were struggling quite a bit in the first round.
Few of the county elite scored well except for Shane Winstone of Saltford, Laurie Potter of Minchinhampton & Mat Basey of The Kendleshire who all returned very good 74's. On average the County's best got around in the mid to high 70's.
The players started to get to grips with the speed of the course in round two with David Lake of Knowle & Oscar Sharpe of Minchinhampton both returning level par 72's & Tyler Hogarty (Rodway Hill), Andy Rudge (Bristol & Clifton) & Mat Stanford (Chipping Sodbury) all bringing home excellent 73's. Incredibly, Nick Day of Henbury broke the course record with a stunning 68 (4 under par) to catapult himself into the halfway lead.
Round three was a consolidation round on the Sunday morning with the counties best showing their class. Nick Day returned a solid 73 as did Stanford & Sharpe. Tom Workman (Stinchcombe Hill) & Alex Palomeque (Kendleshire) put themselves in the mix with excellent 72's but the highlight of the 3rd round was a terrific 70 by Tyler Hogarty who is one of the county junior's team.
Going into the 4th & final 18 holes at least 10 players from the 29 qualifiers. (Shane Winstone pulled out, having made the cut) had a chance to win the 94 year old tournament. Ollie Glaze at last showed some good form in returning a great 71, Workman a great 73 & a great challenge by Hogarty, Stanford & Lake,( all with 74's), could not stop Nick Day from winning his biggest tournament to date with a wonderful 72 under enormous pressure. He is a most popular winner having come close on many occasions. He now looks forward to putting in a real challenge to try & win the South Western Counties Championships on 8th June at Trevose.
Altogether a wonderful weekend of high quality golf on a tough but fair fabulous golf course. Nigel Thompson, the County Captain had a few tough choices to make in naming his squad for South West Week on 6th - 11th June at Trevose.
More info Ian Watkins 01242 621476.
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