86th Amateur Championship
What a fantastic couple of days at Ellesborough to witness John Gough (Stoke Park) become the youngest ever County Champion holding off a great challenge from former Champion John Kemp, with other previous Champions – Tom Lawson and Kevin Freeman also chasing hard. A great win from such a young man to hold off such a bunch (better collective noun needed here – prizes for suggestions) multiple winners.
Two wonderful days, with barely a breeze, enabled the payers to score really well at Ellesborough even if, as always, the greens were slick and tricky. John Kemp (Woburn) led after round 1 with a 3 under par 68, with Tom Lawson (Stoke Park), Sandy Bolton (Goring & Streatley) and Ben Jenks (Buckingham) a shot further back. Round 2 saw the scores improve and we had a number of sub par rounds coming in with Tom Butterworth (Harewood Downs) moving in to 6th place after a 68 and Damien Hewitt moving to 4th after a great 5 under par 66. The best was yet to come as John Gough (Stoke Park) was red hot as he produced a 7 under par 64 which included a run of 3 birdies, eagle and 2 more birdies. John Kemp and Tom Lawson both had good rounds but were 4 and 6 shots back respectively as John Gough opened a 4 shot lead going in to Day 2. The cut fell at 145 with 16 players going through although Damien Hewitt in 4th place had to withdraw later through injury.
Round 3 is normally when players make their move to catch the leaders, but this was not the case today. Only Kevin Freeman (Stoke Park) improved his position with a 1 under round of 70 and with John Gough scoring another sub par round of 69 he extended his lead to 7 shots over his only serious challenger John Kemp. Round 4 produced 2 rounds of 68, one from Olly Huggins (Frilford Heath) to see him finish 6th overall and one from 4 time Champion Tom Lawson to push him up to 3rd. The gap between the 2 Johns did close to 6 with 3 holes to play but Kemp was unable to capitalise on a rare mistake from Gough at the short 16th and despite a birdie at the 17th from Kemp, Gough held his nerve and hit a great drive up 18 to leave a 7 iron into the par 5 and his birdie 4 gave him a 5 shot win in the 86th Championship and become the youngest BB&O County Champion at just 16 years of age.
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Click HERE for the Result
John Gough – 86th County Champion
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