Top guns rule in the valley of hope

Apr 17 2008 by Tim Taylor, The Journal

AS you can see from this picture taken by The Journal’s Tim McGuinness, a magnificent view of the Tyne Valley awaits golfers on the sixth tee at Hexham.

But this is a club with more than just a pretty face as Northumberland’s finest stand every chance of finding out when Hexham host the county championship in late June with their strong contingent having home advantage over the rest of the field.

Hexham are the only club in the county with three plus handicappers in Ben Taylor (+2), Philip Waugh (+1) and Sean Heads (+1). Along with one-handicap Warren Young, they are rated by expert judges as contenders for the title.

Heads, incidentally, will partner two-handicapper Martin Coup this Saturday morning, when Hexham hope to win the County Foursomes final against City of Newcastle at Tyneside, with the winners going on to play the County Durham champions in the afternoon.

For the 2008 Hexham club captain Ian Crawford, these are all salad days. The course will still be in prime condition when the county championship is followed at Hexham on July 1 by a challenge match between The Hadrian League and The Journal Dream Team, sponsored by ZFL Golf and Bill Goff Golf Holidays.

However strong a side champions Hexham and the other 13 clubs from the Hadrian League can put together, the opposition will not be shaking in their golf shoes. The Dream Team top three will be Gary Wolstenholme, Chris Paisley and Matfen Hall’s PGA North Region champion John Harrison, The Journal’s Dr John, whose coaching has helped Ashington’s Kenneth Ferrie to win twice on the European Tour.

Paisley, from the Stocksfield club, is the reigning Northumberland champion, a US college circuit winner and the only amateur in history to win a PGA North Region title – last year’s Rock.

Wolstenholme, now playing for Cumbria, has a Walker Cup win over Tiger Woods and two British Amateur Championships on his CV and he is the world record holder for international caps, having represented England 214 times.

The names of Paisley and Wolstenhome are written on the team-sheet in pencil, because either or both of them might be picked by England for the European Team Championships.

For good reasons though, Hexham captain Crawford – a 6ft 16st six-handicapper who is playing for the Dream Team – is more excited by the county championship heading for his club’s lush parklands fairways in June.

A partner in Crawford Higgins Associates, the Hexham firm of building surveyors and structural engineers, 42-year-old Crawford has been the Hexham club’s junior organiser for five years.

“I have enjoyed seeing good players come through from the junior ranks not just from our club, but all over the county,” he said.

“When you are involved in a sport at grassroots level, you take a great deal of pleasure in following their careers and seeing how they get on.

“I played rugby for 20 years at Tynedale, the same club as Will Robson’s dad, Billy, although Billy was a first-team number eight and I was a prop for a lesser side, the Grasshoppers.

“Young Will has always been a fine all-round sportsman and he stood out at golf right from the start with a lot of talent, a great ball striker just like Chris Paisley.”

Robson junior, the teenager who took Morpeth’s Sandy Twynholm to a play-off in last year’s Journal Champion of Champions, embodies another subject close to Crawford’s heart.

Crawford fondly includes any Northumberland club in and around the Tyne Valley as part of his roots and Robson’s club, Bellingham, fits that bill.

Other Tyne Valley raiders with genuine chances of winning the county title are another golfer from Bellingham, Matt Blackith, plus Prudhoe’s James Curry and Danny Shevill, Matfen’s Brandon Bailey, Slaley Hall’s Kris Gray and Paisley, the favourite and champion from Stocksfield.

As yet, The Journal scouts have unearthed no likely winners of this year’s championship from Allendale, Close House, Haltwhistle and Tynedale. But Crawford said: “Golf in the area has come on in many ways over the years and I love standing on our sixth tee at Hexham, because you can see all the way up to the north of the Tyne Valley and all the way down to the south of it.

“It’s the best view on a course that has many fine sights and to think we’ve got the county championship here with so many Tyne Valley golfers in with a chance of winning, that is something really special at any time.

“For it to happen in my year as captain is the icing on the cake for me personally. I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to all the county’s finest players coming to Hexham.

“Hopefully, of course, one of our club’s lads will win the Northumberland Championship this year. That would be perfect. Just perfect.”