Cumbria’s formula could answer Twynholm’s query

Jul 3 2008 by Tim Taylor, The Journal

CUMBRIA have provided food for thought in view of recent comments by Sandy Twynholm that the winner of the Northumberland strokeplay championship should be regarded as the county champion rather than the matchplay winner.

Part of Twynholm’s reasoning is that qualifiers for the matchplay championship are held on midweek evenings, when the golfers have to play after work.

Five days ago, Twynholm’s Morpeth club-mate, Mark Penny, completed the double of both Northumberland titles in the same season. Twynholm was the last man to do that, four years ago.

Twynholm (pictured right), the Muirfield amateur course record holder, maintains amateur golfers should expect to be able to play their county competitions at weekends. And Cumbria have held a county championship which involves a strokeplay qualifying competition on a Saturday – leading into the last 16 in matchplay format on Sunday and a Bank Holiday Monday.

This may have appeased Hexham’s Big Six man Sean Heads, who took the opposite point of view to Tywnholm. That was partly because Heads felt the Northumberland matchplay winner, their county champion, had to negotiate a strokeplay qualifying field first, thus producing a winner competent in both forms of the sport. Twynholm hopes the issue will be discussed at the Northumberland annual meeting early next year, which will precede the 2009 season – an “interesting debate” he says he would be happy to see take place.

Strokeplay followed by matchplay on three consecutive non-working days may be seen by some as a sensible method of deciding who is anybody’s county champion and that already happens in some counties. The clubs are the county and it seems logical they should all have the opportunity to present their views on the matter collectively and come to a conclusion favoured by the majority.

The view of the EGU Championship Department is: “Some counties have both strokeplay and matchplay champions and some have just the one, but it is up to the county as to whom they send to the national championships, and that is whoever they consider to be their county champion.”