Tournament Newsroom

County champions on trail of national titles at Woodhall Spa

This weekend’s action (22nd – 23rd September) at Woodhall Spa promises to be the best of the season at England Golf headquarters with the county champions in all three categories, boys, men and seniors, compete for their respective national titles over the Hotchkin course.

All three championships are over 36 holes, the boys on Saturday, the men on Sunday while the seniors play one round on each day.

Nick Marsh (Huddersfield, Yorkshire) could be hard to beat in the boys’ tournament. He is enjoying a highly successful season, having emerged unbeaten for England in the Boys Home Internationals, scoring five points from six in helping Yorkshire win the Boys County Championship and reaching the quarter finals of the British Boys Championship.

To top it off, last week he won the individual title in the Canadian International Junior Challenge, steering England to their fifth successive victory in the event. He currently lies fifth on the Titleist/FootJoy England Golf Boys Order of Merit.

Also in the field of 34 boys county champions is Ashton Turner (Kenwick Park, Lincolnshire), who was a team-mate of Marsh in the victorious Boys Home Internationals team, winning five points from six, and he has also represented GB&I against the Continent of Europe this year in the Jacques Leglise Trophy.

England under 16 champion Jake Storey (Alnmouth, Northumberland) is also in the field as is Robert Burlison (Oxley Park, Staffordshire), another member of the Boys Home Internationals team, and Jordan Ainley (Brokenhurst Manor, Hampshire, IoW & CI).

Ainley will also be competing in the men’s championship, having won both Hampshire titles. This championship, as usual, covers a wide age range from teenagers to the highly experienced David Gibson (Cosby, Leicestershire & Rutland) and Ross Overton (Coxmoor, Nottinghamshire).

Ainley will play alongside James Burnett (Sleaford, Lincolnshire), a full England international after making his debut against France in May, while Max Orrin (North Foreland, Kent), who lost a playoff for the Duke of York Young Champions Trophy at Royal Troon recently, is another to watch.

Orrin, a boy cap for the past two years, dropped just half a point in six games in the Boys Home Internationals and has won the Malcolm Reid Salver for the best aggregate this season from the McEvoy and Carris Trophies.

Also in the field of 31 boy county champions is Bobby Keeble (Abridge, Essex), runner-up in the Carris Trophy, Daniel Brown (Bedale, Yorkshire), who scored six-out-of-six in Yorkshire’s Boys County Championship triumph, and Tom Small (Farrington, Somerset), a member of the Farrington team that finished runners-up in last weekend’s Champion Club Tournament.

The Seniors’ field includes several internationals, not least Tyrone Carter (Stevenage, Hertfordshire), who made his seniors debut for England in the recent European Seniors Team Championships in Portugal, winning all three of his games.  He is a long-hitter as is Geoff King (West Essex, Essex).

Andrew Carman (Coventry, Warwickshire), capped by England at men’s and seniors levels, is also in the field of 31, as is Jon Marks (Woodbridge, Suffolk), another seniors international.