FORMER Ryder Cup captain Sam Torrance hailed his first trip to Huddersfield and predicted more success ahead for Britain’s top golfers.

The 56-year-old was at Crosland Heath to mark his return as a club contract player with John Letters of Scotland.

The famous Letters brand is now headed by Huddersfield businessman and Crosland Heath member John Andrew, who acted quickly to bring Torrance to his club to celebrate the new deal in style.

Torrance took on local golfing teams in a nearest the pin competition on the ninth hole to raise funds for the Chris Gill Junior Golf Foundation, with the highly-popular Scot enjoying every minute of his first visit to the area.

“John is proud of his course and was keen for me to see for myself,” said European Senior Tour star Torrance, who has over 43 pro wins to his name, as well as eight Ryder Cup appearances and a victory as the captain of the European team.

“And it’s certainly beautiful, although with the ninth hole being on a hill there is a fair bit of wind, as I immediately discovered for myself.

“But that made this a great challenge and needed a good shot. Fortunately, I knew that whatever happened I was still going to eat well in the clubhouse, so that wasn’t a major problem!

“I was up against some pretty decent golfers, and it was a very enjoyable day.”

And Torrance believes there are more than enough quality British golfers in 2010 to suggest this could be a golden year.

Northern Ireland’s Graeme McDowell won the US Open last month, and Torrance sees no reason why there can’t be a ‘home’ winner of the British Open at St Andrew’s next month and victory for Europe over America in the Ryder Cup at Celtic Manor, Wales, in October.

“I think there’s a huge chance we’ll see a British winner at the Open,” he added. “We’ve got a wealth of talent in British golf at the moment, with a lot of great young talent coming through.

“It also means we’ll certainly be in with a chance of winning the Ryder Cup as well, although you know the threat from the Americans will always be there.

“But we’ve definitely got a lot of talent in the British game at the moment.”