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Harley Smith will head into this week’s English Men’s Amateur Championship at Moortown and Headingley golf clubs on a high after a quick phone call from Justin Rose.
Smith, a 16-year-old from the Rayleigh Club in Essex, got the call after adding the Carris Trophy (for winning the English Open Amateur Stroke Play for under-18 boys) to the McGregor Trophy he claimed the previous week (for winning the English Open Amateur Stroke Play for under-16 boys). In so doing he joined Rose, the 2013 U.S. Open champion and 2016 Olympic gold medallist, as the only players who have won both events for English boys in the same calendar year.
“It was incredible,” Smith said. “I respect Justin a lot as one of England’s greatest-ever players. I think he’s done a lot for the English game and I’m very happy to put my name alongside his in the hall of fame.
“I do get goosebumps because of what he’s done in the game of golf. It’s unbelievable and he’s what I’d like to be in a few years’ time.”
Smith began the final round of the Carris Trophy at Bristol & Clifton Golf Club one shot behind Italian playing companion Riccardo Fantinelli. A closing 71 saw Smith leapfrog the third-round leader and finish on 8-under-par 272, three shots ahead of the third member of the group, Scotland’s Calum Scott.
Fantinelli closed with a 75 to drop into third place on 275, two shots in front of Englishman Matthew Dodd-Berry and another Scot, Daniel Bullen.
“Coming into this event, I had a bit of form from last week and I had to knuckle down, map out the course the best I could in the practice round and it paid off,” Smith said. “I had a good game plan and didn’t take on anything stupid.
“No-one in our group got off to the best of starts today. It was breezy at the start of the round and after nine holes it was very tight.
“On the back nine I was two clear with two to play but then Calum played an unreal chip on 17 which, to be fair, I thought he had holed. On the last, luckily for me, he didn’t have the greatest chip and putt which took the pressure off me.
“I’ll do my best to put up a fight next week (at the English Amateur),” Smith added. “I have a nice draw and hopefully I can get to the match play and see what happens from there.”
Jack Cope and Callan Barrow head the field for this week’s English Men’s Amateur. Cope, from the Players Club in Bristol, defeated Barrow, from Royal Lytham, in last year’s final. But Barrow has since won the Scottish Men’s Open Championship and finished fourth behind Cope at the following week’s St Andrews Links Trophy.
“We were able to showcase all that was good about the men’s and women’s amateur game in one amazing week of golf. It’s an innovative and modern formula we felt was worth repeating moving forwards.”
James Crampton
This year’s English Amateur will be held simultaneously at the same venues with the women’s equivalent, as was the case last year when COVID-19 resulted in the women’s championship being postponed in May and then played in tandem with the men a couple of months later at Woodhall Spa.
“The success of the event at Woodhall Spa last July blew us all away,” said James Crampton, director of championships for England Golf. “The pandemic meant we had to reschedule the women’s event from May and we chose to be bold and align it with the men’s event in July.
“This was a groundbreaking plan but it proved to be a tremendous success. The feedback from competitors was wholly positive and it was spectacular to see the top men and women on site together and competing for their respective national titles.
Emily Price defends the women’s title in a field that includes Patience Rhodes, who won last week’s English Girls’ Open Amateur Stroke Play at Malton & Norton Golf Club in Yorkshire.
Rhodes, the 17-year-old England Golf squad member from Burnham & Berrow Golf Club, birdied two of her last five holes for a 2-under-par 70 to finish on level-par 288 last year, one shot ahead of 14-year-old Rosie Bee Kim, who won the Hazards Salver as the top performing under-16 in the field. Close House’s Maggie Whitehead and Arcot Hall’s Rachel Gourley both closed with level-par rounds of 72 to finish third and fourth respectively.
“It means the world,” Rhodes said. “I’m over the moon.”
Rhodes comes from a golfing family, with her elder sister Mimi also having come through the girls’ and women’s squads for England Golf.
Both sisters are in the field for this week’s English Women’s Amateur along with Lianna Bailey, Annabel Fuller, Rosie Belsham, Charlotte Heath and Caley McGinty, who teamed with Emily Toy to help England win the recent European Ladies’ Team Championships at Royal County Down.
Top: Harley Smith hits an approach short during last month's Amateur Championship.
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