HAMPSHIRE captain Toby Burden will be keeping one eye on his phone awaiting updates from the English Amateur Championship, while working as a talent spotter for major UK technology firm Leidos.
Burden has six members of the county’s first-team squad competing at Seaton Carew and Hartlepool golf clubs on Tuesday and Wednesday, battling against 200 of the country’s best amateurs for a place in the top 64 who will compete in the matchplay knockout over the final three days of this year’s championship.
Toby will select his eight-man team to face Surrey at Hindhead for this weekend’s South Division showdown, with a place in October’s South East League Final at stake, and the chance to defend the Daily Telegraph Salver they won 12 months ago, if they can come out on top against their arch-rivals.
But Toby’s bid to become the 12th Hampshire captain to lead his side at the South East League Finals could hang on the success of his young stars in the English Amateur Championship.
Burden, the first Hayling golfer to captain the county in more than 70 years, has put a couple of reserves on standby in the event one – or more of his team – end up in the latter stages of the English Amateur.
Toby said: “I have plans in place that mean should one of the guys get through to the weekend at Seaton Carew, they won’t be considered for the Surrey match. If they don’t make the weekend and have been selected, they will play at Hindhead.
“I would love to see three or four Hampshire plaeyrs make it through to the latter stages – we have such depth in our squad that we can allow for this – it would be a fantastic experience for them – ask anyone who who played in the final like Scott Gregory or Harry Ellis what it can do for your career.
“I will be cheering them on hoping one of them can bring the trophy back to Hampshire, and checking the scores on my phone in case I need to make a call or two to the rest of the squad and change my plans,” Toby added.
Charlie Forster was called up for his Great Britain and Ireland debut against Continental Europe at Royal Porthcawl last week. Picture by ANDREW GRIFFIN / AMG PICTURES
Two years ago, Charlie Forster was unknown outside the county, but the 2021 Hampshire Boys Champion caused a stir by reaching the last four when the championship was held at Lindrick, in South Yorkshire.
The Basingstoke GC member was only beaten by Yorkshire’s George Ash with a place in the final at stake, when the 19-year-old North Hants GC member, who was playing golf for Southeastern Louisiana University at the time.
For Forster, it’s been a busy month, after making his Great Britain and Ireland debut in the St Andrews Trophy, at Royal Porthcawl, last week.
Having reached the last 16 in the Amateur Championship, knocking out last year’s European Amateur Champion along the way, Forster was also in contention to win this year’s leading strokeplay championship on the Continent, catching the eye of the R&A Walker Cup selectors for the second time in a month.
With his run to the English semis – when a relatively unknown Hampshire county player two years ago – still fresh in their minds, plus his good record while at college in the States, Forster found himself in the slightly unusual position of making his GB&I debut, before he has been capped by England.
This week is his final chance to push for a place in the England team for the Home Internationals later this month in Scotland, having played four rounds in the St Andrews Trophy without picking up a point against Continental Europe, who won comfortably by 16-9.
It was just the European’s seventh win in some 67 years of the biennial competition’s history, and such are the standards that Forster should find himself unable to even record a half on his international debut.
Holland’s Jerry Li – runner-up in the European Amateur as a junior six years ago – fought all the way after falling behind on the fifth, winning three holes from the 12th to seal Forster’s fate with a 2&1 win in Friday’s singles, when only a big win could save Dean Robertson’s GB&I side.
Forster, who switched to California’s Long Beach University from Southeast Louisiana last summer, was paired with Max Kennedy, having beaten the Irishman in The Amateur, at Ballyliffin last month, but they were beaten on both days (results here).
Last year’s German Boys Open winner Tim Widemeyer beat Charlie 4&3 on the opening afternoon, having recorded a victory in his freshman year at Texas Tech, in a sobering experience for the former Hampshire Junior Champion.
A chance to play in the English Amateur is probably the best thing for Forster, who has been on a meteoric rise over the last four years to get back to winning ways.
He was only beaten last year by eventual champion Ben Brown, the brother of 2016 winner Dan Brown, who led the Open last week at Troon after the first round.
Corhampton’s Scott Gregory drove back from the English Amateur final at Saunton GC in North Devon on the Saturday evening to play against Surrey the next day in 2014. Picture by ANDREW GRIFFIN / AMG PICTURES
Ten years ago, Corhampton’s Scott Gregory drove some 350 miles back from North Devon on the Saturday evening, having just lost in the English Amateur Final, to face Surrey at Liphook the next morning.
But having played eight rounds over the previous six days, on top of two practice rounds, the future Walker Cup ace and Amateur Champion was running on empty.
Hampshire produced a player in the last four on five occasions in 11 years, including Forster’s dramatic run, while Gregory and Harry Ellis – the youngest-ever English Amateur winner aged just 16 in 2012 when he broke Sir Nick Faldo’s 38-year-old record contested the semi-finals in the space of three years.
Gregory reached the last four again in 2017 – beaten by Staffordshire’s Jack Gaunt, who made the semi-finals two years in a row, only beaten a year earlier by Yorkshire’s Dan Brown – the surprise hero at Royal Troon two weeks ago.
Also making the long journey to the North East this week are Jersey’s 2021 Hampshire, Isle of White and Channel Islands Amateur Champion Jo Hacker, from La Moye GC, 2022 winner James Freeman, from Stoneham, and fellow first-team member Joe Buenfeld, from Bramshaw, who lost to his best friend in the final two years ago.
Hacker finished third in qualifying at Worksop and Lindrick two years ago but then lost to Kent’s England international Mason Essam in the first round, while Buenfeld beat Surrey’s Harvey Byers only to find himself up against Forster in round two, and bowed out losing 5&3.
North Hants GC’s Robert Wheeler will be hoping to make the knockout for the first time on his second appearance in the English Amateur, having seen any realistic hope of qualifying last year washed out by the rain that meant only one qualifying round was completed at Dorset’s Broadstone and Ferndown.
Wheeler was in the Hampshire team that won convincingly away to Kent in late May – the last match Lawrence Cherry captained before the Stoneham member moved to Dubai – but lost his place when Toby Burden took over the reins when they faced Sussex in June, winning 10-2 at Brokenhurst Manor.
Hampshire’s Under 21 champion Sam West, from Liphook, is looking to make it into the matchplay for the second-year running, but the golf scholar based at Ohio’s Miami University has yet to force his way into the county men’s squad.
Meanwhile Toby will also be checking on former England U16 cap, George Saunders, who won the West of England Amateur as a junior in 2018. The Liphook member will be hoping to avoid his fate in 2022, when he missed out by one shot.
North Hants have two more players in the field – James Atkins, who reached the last four at Blackmoor in June, and Christian Lindgreen, a former Hampshire Boys captain, who made the knockout for a third year in a row at this summer’s county championship.
•For all the R1 tee times at Seaton Carew and Hartlepool in the 2024 English Amateur Championship, click here.
Hampshire captain Toby Burden has said he won’t be allowing any player who reaches the last eight in the English Amateur to play for the county 24 hours later, as Scott Gregory (above) did after playing in the 2014 final. Picture by ANDREW GRIFFIN / AMG PICTURES