Will Earns Us Trip

Nov 4 2009 The Journal

NORTH EAST youngster Will Skipp can look forward to a dream trip to play at one of the world's great golf courses after excelling himself in the annual HSBC Wee Wonders tournament. The seven-year-old from Eaglescliffe Golf Club in the Tees Valley was runner-up in his age group at the UK and Ireland national finals of the well-known event at St Andrew's in Scotland.

Will, who is from Hartburn in Stockton-on-Tees, won the regional round of the tournament for five to 12-year-olds at Leeds Golf Centre.

That earned him a place at the 2009 grand final at the home of golf and he then battled it out with over a hundred of the country's young golfing talent in two tough days of competition.

Will, who has been coached by Matty Clements at the Knotty Hill golf centre at Sedgefield since the age of three, played four rounds on the nine-hole Balgove course.

The conditions over the weekend were some of the most testing the HSBC Wee Wonders has ever seen with winds gusting up to 30 mph on the Saturday.

Will competed in the 7 to 8 years age group and finished 8th overall but he was second in the 7 years group, which was good enough to earn him a place in the Wee Wonders world championships, which are being staged at the legendary Pinehurst golf complex in North Carolina in the United States next August.