It was a clean sweep for Crosland Heath in the ProAm at Tuesday’s Winter Alliance at Bradley Hall and a runaway win for a home pairing in the amateur section.
Two of the Heath’s professionals and two clubmates claimed joint top spot - there are no countbacks in the Pro-Am
Assistant professional Joe Lester and Oliver Shaw (5) shared first place with professional Robert Booth, attached to Crosland Heath, and Chris L’Estrange (12), all on 40 points.
On a day of wall-to-wall sunshine, high scoring was the order.
There was fierce competition between the professionals with two points covering the top seven places, as 10 of them turned out to get some early-season practice and battle it out for first prize.
There was a three-way tie for third on 39 points: Chris Hanson and Gary Shuttleworth (9) of Woodsome Hall and Bradley Hall, James Ward and Fergus Barron (5) of Dewsbury, and Richard Lambert and Les Dyson (14) of Crosland Heath.
Young Lester, who still has another 18 months to go before he’s fully qualified as a professional, was delighted to win his first Alliance.
He said: “We were second out and played pretty steadily.
“We got off to a good start with a couple of birdies, but I didn’t think our 40 points would be good enough to win, especially as the wind calmed down in the afternoon.
“I’m really pleased with the win and hopefully that will carry on this year.
“It’s great that Crosland Heath cleared up in the top prizes, I think we are leading the team scores at this point.”
The scoring was even higher among the amateurs with the Bradley Hall pairing of Steve Hopkinson (6) and Richard Popps (20) making the game look easy.
They strolled home with an impressive 45 points, five clear points ahead of their nearest rivals, Mark Campbell (7) and Richard Langley-Webb (10) of Crow Nest Park.
They beat Clive McFadzean (4) and Andrew Guest (12), of Bradley Hall, on a countback. Two of the next three pairs on 39 points were also from the home club.
The greenkeepers had been hard at work at Bradley Hall with many new ditches in evidence, although it was sticky and wet underfoot in many places.
The greens had been “ironed” and were quite fast, although the uneven colouring of the grass made it difficult to get a good read.
There were two gross eagles at the par five eighth by Robert Booth and by Paul Cross (14) of Crosland Heath. There were also 12 net eagles, four of them at the par four 14th.
The next Alliance is at Meltham on Tuesday, March 24.
