Take It As Red That It’s Best Field For Brabazon
Frilford Heath Golf Club (© Leaderboard Photography)
FRILFORD Heath is looking forward to hosting some of the greatest amateur golfers on the planet to the Oxfordshire course which is hosting the Brabazon Trophy this week.
The English Amateur Strokeplay Championship is a truly international event and has been won by some of the great names in UK golf – including Ryder Cup players Sandy Lyle and Peter Baker, while Spain’s Ignacia Garrido, who played in the 1997 Ryder Cup at Valderrama, won the the famous gold trophy at Notts’ Hollinwell, in 1992.
In more modern times South Africa’s Charl Schwartzel gave more than a glimpse of the immense talent about to hit the world stage in the pro ranks with his emphatic victory at Royal Cinque Ports in 2002.
Schwartzel claimed the Green Jacket at Augusta nine years later and Lyle – who won the Brabazon at Hollinwell in 1975 and again at Hoylake in 1977 – claimed the Open Championship in 1985 and added the Masters to his collection in 1988.
Two US Open champions in Hampshire’s Justin Rose (2013) and former World number one Rory McIlroy (2011) have both competed for the Brabazon before going on to win their Major titles.
The main contenders will include Essex’s England Amateur Champion Todd Clements and Hoylake’s Walker Cup player Matthew Jordan, who are both ranked in the world top 20 – and are in sizzling form.
The latter has a remarkable handicap of plus-seven after his victory in the Lytham Trophy earlier this month.
Gary Wolstenholme, arguably the greatest UK amateur in the modern age, who is now playing on the European Seniors Tour only ever got down to plus-five, as did Hampshire’s Sam Hutsby before he turned pro after the 2009 Walker Cup.
Clements, from Braintree, who is coached by former teenage prodigy Zane Scotland, saw off the pride of Europe to score a five-shot individual win at the European Nations Cup.
Among the other in-form players are Hampshire’s Billy McKenzie, from Rowlands Castle – the Spanish amateur champion and Staffordshire’s Gian-Marco Petrozzi (Trentham), the New South Wales amateur champion.
It is only the second time a golf club in Oxfordshire has staged the English Strokeplay – the first was The Oxfordshire back in 2005 when Scotland’s Lloyd Saltman was the winner.
Frilford Heath has staged the English Amateur twice since the mid 1980s but the club are hoping that hosting the Brabazon will show off the 54-hole complex – which regularly hosts the Europro Tour – to the golfing world.
Its Red Course – which hosted the English Amateur when it was won by Hampshire’s Kevin Weeks in 1987 – will be used for the 72 holes of the Brabazon and also when Open Qualifying returns to the course near Abingdon for the third year in a row, on June 25.
The shorter Green course has also been used for major events while the Blue which opened in the early 1990s is regularly used for the pro events staged there.
Alistair Booth, who is both chairman of Frilford Heath and president of Berks, Bucks and Oxon (BB&O), said: “We want to let everyone know about this great opportunity to watch top quality players who will be the professionals of the future.
“We’d love to welcome everyone with an interest in golf and we’re hoping for lots of spectators from local clubs and that families will see this as a great day out.”
Last year’s men’s championship was won by another South African Kyle McClatchie – who is now playing on the European Challenge Tour along with Hamphsire’s 2016 British Amateur Champion Scott Gregory, from Corhampton.
Three other South Africans are aiming to emulate McClatchie’s feat at Woodhall Spa, the HQ of England Golf. Malcolm Mitchell, Matt Saulez and Chris Woollam are all ranked in their country’s top six.
For tee times and live scoring go to www.englandgolf.org//golfboxdetails.aspx#/competition/954245/leaderboard
SOUTHERN COUNTIES’ HAVE GOOD RECORD
Hampshire and Wiltshire have been dominant forces in the Brabazon’s recent history – Darren Wright became just the ninth player to complete the double of winning the Brabazon and the Carris Trophy with victory at Royal Liverpool in 2010, while Corhampton’s Neil Raymond became the first player in some 50 years to win it back-to-back outright with victories at Burnham and Berrow and Walton Heath in 2011 and 2012 respectively.
Wiltshire’s Walker Cup players Jordan Smith from Bowood, and Rushmore’s Ben Stow then kept the trophy in Wiltshire for two years after their wins at Formby and Seaton Carew over the next two years.
Worthing’s future European Tour player Gary Evans claimed the title back to back in 1990 and 1991 – but in both cases the player, who for many years was attached to Mill Ride at Ascot, was tied at the top of the leaderboard and there were no sudden-death play-offs.
Only nine players have won the Brabazon more than one – Sir Michael Bonallack is the competition’s most successful champion with four victories between 1964 and 1971, while R Shade and Philip Scrutton claimed it three times each in the 1950s and early 1960s.
Sunningdale’s Scutton, who died in a car crash on the A30 at Hartley Wintney in 1958 after playing in two Walker Cups, had the Scrutton Jug dedicated in his honour for the best aggregate total in the Brabazon and Berkshire Trophies each year.
Other past winners from the south include Matt Richardson (Middlesex) in 2004, Surrey’s Mark Side in 1998, Broome Manor’s Gary Harris in 1994, who became the first-ever Wiltshire winner having come through the junior ranks as future Ryder Cup player David Howell’s foursomes partner.
The last BB&O golfer to land the Brabazon was Stoke Poges’ David Fisher, when it was held at Southampton’s Stoneham in 1993 – he was also the first – and last – player to win the English Amateur and Brabazon in the same season since Essex-based Bonallack’s double in 1968.
Stoneham – which is in the middle of a £1million transformation – has staged the Brabazon twice – the first was back in 1949 when local boy Paddy Hine, a future Air Marshall in the RAF completed the first leg of a remarkable double that has never been matched in 70 years.
The future R&A captain went on to become the first amateur to win the men’s and boy’s English Strokeplay titles in the same season when he won the Carris Trophy at Moor Park that July.
