Ham Manor’s Chalie Strickland is bidding to become the first Brabazon Trophy winner since Gary Evans in 1991. Picture by LEADERBOARD PHOTOGRAPHY
SUSSEX’S Charlie Strickland shot a bogey-free 66 to take a two-shot lead after the first round of the Brabazon Trophy at Leeds’ Alwoodley Golf Club.
The 20-year-old from Ham Manor was five-under par in tough conditions of wind and drizzle, holding tight to his score with good par saves on the final two holes.
His closest challenger in the English Men’s Open Amateur Strokeplay was West Cornwall’s Harry Hall who carded a 68, while four players are grouped on two-under 69 and another six on 70.
Strickland’s confidence is high after finishing third in the recent Irish Amateur and he started with a pair of birdies. “I just kicked on from there,” he said. “I missed a few chances going out, but it was really steady.”
He reached the turn in three-under and added another pair of birdies on 11 and 12, holing from 25ft and 12ft. “From there I knew it was really hard coming in, so I concentrated on getting it on the fairway and on the green.
“I felt there was a good score coming. I’ve been playing well, but not really carrying it through the round, so I’m happy with that,” said Strickland, who is bidding to become the first Sussex winner of the Brabazon since Worthing’s Gary Evans, claimed a share of the title back-to-back in 1990, at Burnham, and Berrow and 1991 at Hunstanton.
Hampshire’s former winner Darren Wright, from Rowlands Castle, was inside the top 10 after a one-under 70 and will be hoping to become the 11th player to have won the Brabazon twice – the last was former county team-mate Neil Raymond, in 2012 – completing a Hampshire hat-trick of wins after his win at Walton Heath in 2011, 12 months after Wright had won at Royal Liverpool.
Hall (left) only returned from the University of Las Vegas on Tuesday, but after four years of crossing the Atlantic he’s learned how to dodge the jet lag.
During his final year at UNLV he won twice and he demonstrated that form at Alwoodley, collecting an eagle and three birdies alongside a couple of bogeys.
But most importantly, he produced a string of solid pars at the end of the round to keep on Strickland’s tail.
“It was really brutal into the wind on the last five holes and it was a solid finish,” said Hall who got up and down from a bunker behind the 18th to finish off his round.
The Yorkshire challenge was led by 16-year-old Ben Schmidt, from Rotherham GG, where Masters champion Danny Willett was a junior. He posted a two-under 69, with a strong finish of birdie, par to share third place.
Schmidt said: “I kept the ball in play, didn’t make any major mistakes which cost me and I had a couple of good par saves.” At the 13th, the England Boys squad member had to come out sideways from a bunker, but then got up and down from 100 yards.
Schmidt is playing in the Brabazon for the first time and is keen for a good result. He has plenty of inspiration from within his county’s ranks – Yorkshire have provided two of the last three Brabazon champions, with Nick Poppleton winning last year and Jamie Bower in 2016.
The group on 69 includes England A squad player, Jake Bolton, from Wiltshire’s Ogbourne Downs. He missed the cut in the recent French Amateur – but turned it to his advantage. He went straight back to his coach to refresh his swing and was hot off the blocks with four birdies in his first five holes.
“I hadn’t seen my coach for eight weeks so we tightened everything up,” said Bolton, who also switched back to his old putter after trying a new model over recent weeks. “It’s got my confidence going for the rest of the week,” he said, after signing for his 69.
In April, he lost a play-off with Strickland for the Selborne Salver and just missed out on the Hampshire Salver for the best 72-hole aggregate 24 hours later at North Hants’ Hampshire Hog.
Also on two-under were Scotland’s James Wilson and Wales’ Jake Hapgood. The best start in the championship belonged to Kent’s Cameron Lombard, who holed a 15ft putt for birdie on the first, then chipped in for eagle two on the second. But the finishing holes were less kind to the Canterbury GC member, who finally signed for one-over 72.
THE 10 players who have won the Brabazon more than once include Sandy Lyle, who took the English Strokeplay in 1975 and 1977, and Yorkshire’s Rodney Foster, one of Brtain’s greatest amateurs, who played in five consecutive Walker Cups and went on to captain GB&I twice against the Americans.
Foster is one of five players to have won the Brabazon back-to-back, along with Raymond, Evans, Scotland’s Ronnie Shade, Surrey’s Philip Scrutton in mid 1950s, and the most successful British amtaeur of all-time Sir Michael Bonallack, who took the trophy in 1968 and 1969 – sharing it witth Foster in the latter at nearby Moortown.
Bonallack, who was a member at Essex’s Thorpe Halll, tops the Brabazon honours board with four wins between 1964 and 1971 while Sunningdale’s Scrutton, who was tragically killed in a car accident on the A30, at Hartley Wintney, Hampshire, in 1958, at the age of 35, having won the English Strokeplay in 1952, 1954 and 1955.
The only other player to have won the Brabazon three times was Scotland’s Ronnie Shade, between 1961 and 1967. Only five players have won the Brabazon and The Berkshire Trophy, England’s other top postwar 72-hole strokeplay title before the Lytham Trophy was created. They are Lyle, Scrutton, Bonallack, Guy Wolstenholme, Kent’s Peter Hedges and five-time European Challenge Tour winner Jeremy Robinson, from Lincolnshire, the last to do it in 1987.
