Champion Twynholm to defend Slaley title

Jun 28 2008 by Tim Taylor, The Journal

A MUCH anticipated letter will soon be dropping through the doors of golf club secretaries – an invitation for their men’s club champions to enter The Journal Champion of Champions tournament.

This season, it will be a 36-hole scratch strokeplay event to be played over De Vere Slaley Hall’s Priestman Course on Sunday September 14.

The tournament is free to enter and a free two-course buffet lunch will be provided for all competitors, who will have the opportunity to play a free practice round on the Priestman Course.

The competitors can play their practice round – during September only – after 3 pm on any weekday subject to availability.

The winner of The Journal Champion of Champions will gain automatic qualification to The Rock tournament at Matfen Hall in 2009, which is England’s biggest regional PGA event.

This will enable the amateur Champion of Champions to test his skill against professionals from a PGA region that stretches from North Wales to the Scottish borders.

If the date for your club’s 2008 championship is on or after Sunday September 14, your 2007 champion is eligible to enter.

Apart from club champions, the 2008 county senior and junior matchplay and strokeplay champions of Durham and Northumberland are the only golfers who qualify automatically.

There are no substitutes allowed from the clubs in any circumstances.

Apart from tournament winners and the 2007 Journal Champion of Champions, Morpeth’s Sandy Twynholm, only three other golfers are invited to play and all three will be sponsors’ invitations decided by the tournament’s steering committee.

The draw will appear in Journal Sport’s Teeing Off golf column on Thursday September 11. A table ranking the golfers in handicap order and a repeat of the draw will appear in The Journal sports pages on Saturday September 13, the eve of the event. The draw will also be online at: journallive.co.uk/championsdraw from Thursday, September 11. The golfers will tee off at 10-minute intervals from a two-tee start.

Twynholm, the Muirfield amateur course record holder who has won the Northumberland strokeplay championship a record six times, has accepted the invitation to defend his title. “It says a lot about the quality of the event that a golfer of Sandy Twynholm’s calibre was the first winner when the tournament returned to the fixture list last season after a gap of eight years,” said Mark Stancer, Slaley Hall’s golf operations manager.

“The Journal’s mission for the Champion of Champions has always been to bring together as many good amateur golfers as possible and the quality of the 2007 field was outstanding.

“Slaley Hall and The Journal are doing exactly what the golfers who competed in this great tournament last year asked us to do – ‘bring it on again.’

“We have said all along our aim is to make this occasion so special that golfers and spectators will want to come back to time and time again. It’s a big event.”