Young Horsehay golfers are national champions
The team of three boys from Horsehay Village Golf Club in Shropshire have won the title of England’s Junior Champion Club.
Captain Euan Muttitt-Jones, Luke Kelsey and Curtis Ritchie romped to a six-point win in the final, which was played as part of England Golf Week at Frilford Heath Golf Club in Oxfordshire.
Liz Tolster, the club’s junior organiser, said: “We are over the moon. They are really good lads and they have worked really hard to be here and to put in the performance they have. It was a hard-fought campaign – we had to win the county junior league – but we have an excellent coach, Matt Lea, who produces a stream of really good golfers.”
After the first round, when they scored 76 points, the team was lying in joint second place.
They added 83 points to finish on 159 and easily outstripped their opposition. Kelsey contributed scores of 39, 42 and Ritchie provided 37, 41.
Runners-up on 153 points were Sunbury Golf Club, Surrey, pipping St Mellion, Cornwall, on countback. Horsehay Village has a strong junior section with players such as Muttitt-Jones, who played for them the last time they reached the final of the Junior Champion Club in 2015. Now, he’s almost 16 while Kelsey and Ritchie are 14.
The individual winner was Oliver Toyer from Bourn, who had scores of 40, 43, finishing two clear of Kelsey.
England Golf Week is a five-day festival of handicap golf and features the final of a host of team and individual events for club players.
