Handicap for British amateurs?

Jun 4 2009 by Tim Taylor, The Journal

CALLUM Tarren, the hottest prospect in the North East, has been unsuccessful in an attempt to play in this month’s British Amateur, news which was greeted with dismay yesterday by PGA European Tour professional Robert Dinwddie.

The 26-year-old Dinwiddie, a former Walker Cup player from Barnard Castle, called for the R&A to look more closely at the handicap status of golfers from overseas, particularly in America.

Dinwiddie spent four years in US golf at Tennessee State and he said: “I played in four or five British Amateurs. Every year, there were at least a handful of overseas players, many of them Americans, shooting scores in the 80s who should not have been playing at that level.”

The 18-year-old Tarren is the youngest Durham County No 1 since Graeme Storm. He holds the county strokeplay and matchplay titles, and last weekend beat Mark Penny, who won both Northumberland titles last year, 6&5 in the Northern Counties League derby at Ponteland.

Tarren, from the Dinsdale Spa club in Darlington, is starting a US college scholarship at Radford, Virginia, in August and is being tipped to follow Dinwiddie on to the European Tour, where Durham County golfers have long enjoyed a tradition of success.

Doug McClelland, from the South Shields club, who was the first Journal Champion of Champions in 1968, Dave Whelan (Seaton Carew) and Storm (Hartlepool) have all won European Tour titles, in Holland, Spain and France.