Hampshire Golf Limited
Junior Championships Results
The Hampshire Junior Championships were last contested at Waterlooville GC in 1996 and none other than Justin Rose picked up the winners trophy as a young teenager, just one year before his remarkable performance at Birkdale in the Open Championship. On 27th July 2023, 45 of the best young golfers in the County took to the Portsmouth Course on a drizzly July day to see if they could emulate the Hampshire legend by placing their name in History as a Junior Champ.
The morning round saw the Under 12's and 10's take to the course to decide the winners in their age divisions, some fantastic golf was played in tough conditions as Dylan Watson shot a superb 78 in the Under 12's and Jack Turnbull, at only 8 years, shot a cracking 93 (net 62!!) to win both the Gross and Nett trophies take a look at their scoring by clicking here
The afternoon saw the weather settle slightly and the 36 hole competitors head back on to the course for their second round to settle the U16's and U14's titles as well as the overall Hampshire County Junior Championship. A tense back 9 came to a close in the Under 16 division resulting in a tie at the top between Mark Matthews and Tom Conquest, a playoff was on the cards and the two Junior Teammates headed back down the first in a head to head to decide the winner of the Trophy. Mark's classy birdie on the first extra hole secured the victory for the Basingstoke based golfer. Mark becomes one of only a few golfers who have a chance of doing 'The Triple' of becoming U14, U16 and U18 champion as a Junior- he has two attempts to win the last of 3.
In the U14 Division the gross title went to an in form Noah Bailey with a rock solid pair of 81's to give him the win by just one shot and the nett title went to Daniel Ricketts who's fantastic total of 6 under handicap was good enough to also scoop the overall nett prize and two big trophies!
The final Championship to be decided was the Big one! The overall winners title was poised for excitement at lunch time as James Plater of Rowlands Castle posted a solid 73 in tough conditions but had a host of talent chasing him down- none more so than Charlie Preston, fresh off a week at The Carris Trophy, who rallied after a morning 77 to post a 2 under par 70- the only under par score of the day. For quite some time Charlie's score was looking good- at least to get him in to a play off, which he was staying warm for on the putting green whilst he waited for Plater to reach the 18th.
James had other ideas though, starting his afternoon round with a huge statement of intent carding three 2's in the first 7 holes helping him to reach the turn in three under par. He held steady on the tougher back 9, despite dropping a few shots he found himself heading to the 18th hole with a one shot lead. James played the hole sensibly and left himself a 5 footer, up the slope, for the win- he duly rolled the putt in the middle with a sigh of relief and a fist pump!
That action concluded a great day for the Junior Championships and sets up the rest of the Summer holidays full of golf events across the region. Congratulations again to all of the competitors and prize winners and we cant wait to follow the progress of you all for the rest of the year!
For full hole by hole scores, stats and player analysis click here.
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