Toby Garrett marked his debut as a professional by winning this week’s Alliance at Bradley Park.
The 27-year-old, attached to Crosland Heath, turned pro only last week.
Now he’s delighted to have won the ProAm at the first time of asking with Crosland Heath clubmate Michael Lawrence (9).
“It’s the first time I’ve entered as a professional and I’m very happy to have won,” said Garrett after the event.
“I’ve won it a couple of times as an amateur playing with Chris Hanson.
“Michael and I both played pretty well and we combined well. It was quite hard going as there was no roll; the course played long and the balls were plugging.”
Garrett heads down to the Midlands tomorrow for the 1836 Pro Golf Tour event at Little Aston where he hopes to put in a creditable performance. This year he is continuing to work behind the bar at Crosland Heath.
He said: “I am going to see how it goes this summer and see if I can cut it as a professional. If it goes well, I’ll look at going full-time as a pro next year and maybe aiming for the Euro Pro Tour.”
On a day that favoured the big hitters, Garrett and Lawrie took top spot with an impressive 41 points, two ahead of Bradley Park’s Tom Wild and Gary Ward (6). Only two points separated the remaining third to last places.
There was an impressive five-point winning margin in the AmAm by the home club pairing of Adam Taylor (8) and Ben Key (6).
They gained their outstanding 44 points with very consistent scoring – with only the “easy” 14th played over par.
Tied on 39 points, but with a better back nine, Scot Minto (4) and Brian Minto (11), of Hanging Heaton, were second from David Campbell (5) and Shaun Campbell (6), of Meltham.
Following a very cold night the grass was wet and didn’t dry out until early afternoon, despite the warm sunshine. The course played very long from the back tees and there was only one net eagle scored.
The greens were soft and bumpy making short putts particularly difficult.
The next Alliance is the Ronnie Parkinson Trophy at Elland Golf Club on Tuesday, April 21.
