Castle Royle Are English Champions And Qualify For Europe
Castle Royle Are English Champions And Qualify For Europe
CASTLE Royle Golf Club are heading to Europe after winning the English Champion Club tournament at Huddersfield GC.
Internationals David Langley, Harrison Arnold and team-mate Tim Shin won the title for the B.B.&O. champions by eight shots after the 36-hole competition, when all three scores counted in both rounds.
They finished on six-over for a comfortable win over last year’s champions, City of Newcastle Golf Club, represented by Phil Ridden, Alex Dixon and Zak Laws.
The victory has qualified the Castle Royle team to represent England in the European Men’s Club Trophy next month in France.
“That’s awesome,” said Langley, who holed the winning putt for England’s victorious team at the Home Internationals, that stopped Ireland’s bid for a fifth Raymond Trophy in a row.
“We are really excited and looking forward to that, we hope we can do well there.”
The three-man team approached the weekend’s final in positive mood.
Langley, who was also runner-up in the Tillman Trophy earlier this summer added: “We knew we had a strong team and that we had a good chance,”
Team-mate Arnold was part of the winning England team at the Boys’ Home Internationals. Shin has been competing alongside them on the national amateur circuit and playing at a high level for the past few years.
“We are all good friends, so we are motivated to play well for each other,” said Langley, who also helped B.B&O. qualify for this weekend’s English County Finals at Aldeburgh, in Suffolk.
Castle Royle got off to a quick start with a team total of two-under par for the first round, which gave them a one-shot lead over Cosby, Leicestershire & Rutland. Six shots further back were Warwickshire champions Olton and City of Newcastle.
The second round was played in difficult, blustery conditions but the Berkshire boys dug in with their combined score of eight-over.
Meanwhile City of Newcastle were nine-over (14-over in total) and moved into second place while Olton finished third on 18-over.
Langley revealed: “It was a tougher day scoring wise and we all agreed we would just stick in there. We all have quite a lot of experience of doing that at national events and it helped us.
“Huddersfield is a hilly, undulating golf course with slopes on the greens, and it was playing long because of the wet and the wind so it was tricky.”
The best individual score of the weekend was returned by Olton’s Liam Phipps, who was four-under for 36 holes with rounds of 67 and 71.
Exeter’s James Reed and Ipswich’s Habebul Islam both also beat par with total of one-under.
