Can Fleet club do English Champion Club double?

NORTH Hants Golf Club will have the chance to make history this weekend when the men attempt to complete a unique double by becoming the first club to win the English Champion Club double in the same season.

The old English Golf Union Champion Club tournament dates back to 1984 when Ealing, from Middlesex claimed the crown.

After the men’s and the English Ladies Golf Association merged to form England Golf back in 2012, it took another 11 years before the English Women’s Champion Club event was created.

Last year saw Surrey’s Walton Heath crowned the inaugural champions – but North Hants’ trio of Aimee Paterson, Georgina Carter and Lily Walker grabbed the salver firmly with both hands to wrestle if from Shropshire’s Shifnal GC, when the championship was played at Hessle GC three weeks ago.

With the best two of three scores counting in both rounds, Paterson – who lost the Hampshire Ladies County Championship final to North Hants clubmate Gemma Burgess back in May – shot a second round 78, alongside Georgina Carter’s 79 to tie Shifnal’s total of 18-over par.

That meant Lily Walker’s second round score counted and her 83 was nine shots better than Shifnal’s Ann Peters, who carded a 92 to give North Hants the trophy.

Now the men’s team of James Atkins (pictured above middle), Robert Wheeler and Sam De’ath travel to Nottinghamshire’s Stanton-on-the-Wolds, bidding to become just the fourth Hampshire club to win the De Montmorency Trophy in the competition’s 40-year history.

Indeed, not only would that give the county that historic double, it would also see both North Hants’ men’s and women’s teams representing the Fleet club in the European Champion Club events – the women will travel to Slovakia in the first week of October, while the men’s event is being held in France, at the end of that month.

Brokenhust Manor, who were the first Hampshire team to win the de Montmorency Trophy back in 1988, also became the first English club to be crowned European Champions a month later at Spain’s Aloha GC.

Only City of Newcastle (2019) and Ealing (1989 and 1990) have matched that feat since.

Neil Dawson, who captained North Hants last year, and was Hampshire county captain between 2020 and 2022, will be anxiously checking his phone on the latest scores on both days.

He said: “With Christian Lindgreen back in the States having started his Masters at Harding University, in Arkansas, we had to nominate a third player. He finished fourth in the qualifier at Blackmoor, three shots behind James, which is how we came to win the team title.”

By rights, as the fourth North Hants player in the Pechell Salver qualifier that the Hampshire Team Championship is based on, Dawson could have been selected as Lindgreen’s replacement.

Dawson is in good form himself, having been runner-up in the handicap prizes for both the Courage Trophy and Hampshire Mid-Amateur Championship, at the end of last month.

But Neil is away this weekend and Sam is a very good player – as a former mini-tour pro – to have to step into the team.

Neil added: “Sam’s had a busy year with his job working for Golf Monthly magazine, but he has been playing well, and looks to have regained his appetite for the amateur game.

“He played for me when I was Hampshire Colts captain during a successful spell at Florida’s Webber International University and I think we will see him playing more top amateur events in 2025.

“James Atkins is playing the golf of his life, having worked really hard – not just practising, but in his preparation and course management.

“Reaching the last four of the county championship in June, and missing out on Pechell Salver by just a shot shows how well has played, beating all of the county first-team squad.

“Last, but by no means least, Rob Wheeler has been the most improved player in the county set-up over the last two years and fully deserved his first Hampshire Order of Merit title.

“Winning the Hampshire Open a couple of weeks ago, just three days after he lost out at the death in the Courage Trophy shows what a good player Rob has become.

“He was a little unlucky to lose his place in the Hampshire first-team earlier this season, but he has been a stalwart in the Challenge League team, which replaced the Colts, and helped the county reach the South East League Final for a second-year running.

“Beating the best clubs from 30 other counties and the National Association of Public and Proprietary Golf Clubs’ (NAPGC) champions will be tough, but what a fantastic achievement that would be for North Hants if we could become the first English club to do the double.”

HAYLING were the last Hampshire team to claim the De Montmorency Trophy with their incredible turnaround victory at Stoke-by-Nayland eight years ago.

The team of Toby Burden – the current Hampshire captain – Richard Harris, and Kevin Hickman turned around a 14-shot deficit to win by two shots in Suffolk shooting an eight-under par second round between them while Woburn took eight shots more on the Sunday.

In a remarkable back nine, Hayling made up eight shots having still been 19-over par after nine holes in round two.

Burden and Harris, who had claimed the Hampshire Team Championship with Hickman when Hayling hosted the county championship three months earlier, would go on to win the Sloane-Stanley Challenge Cup in the county finals in 2019 and 2020 respectively.

Nineteen years after Brokenhurst Manor’s first win, the trio of Martin Young, his brother Jonahthan, and teenager Robert Gowers won the English Champion Club by two strokes, at Hesketh GC.

The trio, who posted the eventual winning total quite early in the day, the joint overnight leaders beat Worthing from neighbouring county Sussex after Cheshire’s Sandiways fell away.

Jonathan would go on to claim the Hampshire, Isle of Wight and Channel Islands Amateur Championship at the New Forest club three years later, while Martin would keep the Sloane-Stanley Challenge Cup in the family a year later with his first victory at Aldershot’s Army GC.