THREE Durham teenagers who have been coached by European Tour winner Graeme Storm helped Hartlepool’s Dyke House Academy win the English Schools’ Team Championship.
Fourteen-year-old Jack Burton scored 40 Stableford points while 17-year-old Louis Westmoreland registered just one less to give the County Durham school a three-shot victory with 79 points over the Bracken course at Woodhall Spa, the HQ of England Golf.
William Skipp’s 35 points were discounted with the best two scores out of the three counting.
Dyke House Academy’s nearest challengers were Scarborough’s The Graham School, who were represented by Sean Burrows, Tommy Risker and Jack Northgraves.
They racked up 77 points to finish two points clear of the third-placed team from Oxford’s Matthew Arnold School, who were representd by Elizabeth Ball, Jakob Johnson and Freddie Whitfield.
“I’m over the moon,” said Dyke House Academy teacher Rhys Morris. “We played very well and thoroughly deserved our victory.
“We run an elite sports scheme at the school in which golf is one of five sports featured and the coaching the boys have been receiving from Graham Storm and James Harper at The Wynyard Club is definitely helping because we’ve done well in every competition we’ve played.
“We’re all proud of what they have achieved.”
Burrows, from The Graham School, won the Tom Ward Cup awarded to the player with the best individual points total.
He accumulated 41 points to beat Ball, from Matthew Arnold, and Esme Hume, from Hertfordshire’s Roundwood Park School, on countback.
Burton, Bedford School’s Wilf Rush, Wykham Park Academy’s Stanley Kay, West Exe School’s Reggie Reid and Lucy Moss, from Queen Elizabeth, Kirby Lonsdale, all scored 40 points.
