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England’s Ben Schmidt heads to the Justin Rose Telegraph Junior Golf Championship in Portugal this week hoping to add to his list of successes during a spectacular 2019 season.
The 17-year-old from Rotherham will start as a firm favourite to claim a title won in the past by Rose, Matt Fitzpatrick and Oliver Fisher, but will face competition from a strong field that also includes 2017 champion Max Hopkins (Bishop’s Stortford), Hugh Adams (Hagley), Aaron Marshall (Lisburn), Rhys Wallace (Handsworth), Cameron Adam (Royal Burgess), Miles Gray (Etching Hill), Craig Passmore (Torquay), Jacob Kelso (Kings Hill), Henry Hayward (Kedleston Park), Oscar Fuentes (Bearwood Lakes) and Calvin Holmes from the host club, Quinto do Lago.
Schmidt arrives on the Algarve after an incredible season in which he has risen more than 5,000 places in the World Amateur Golf Ranking thanks to victories in the Brabazon Trophy, the Carris Trophy and the Henry Cooper Junior Masters.
The highlight was undoubtedly winning the Brabazon Trophy at Alwoodley Golf Club, where he recorded four rounds in the 60s to become, at 16, the tournament’s youngest winner. It was a success that catapulted him into the English Men’s Home Internationals team, and he was also named as first reserve for the Great Britain & Ireland Walker Cup team.
“It has been crazy looking back on it and, if I’m being honest, the amount of success I enjoyed this year has been unexpected,” world No. 8 Schmidt told England Golf. “But it all just clicked over the summer and everything changed for me in a matter of weeks.
“Over the summer I just got on a roll.
“I came out of winter training and made a decent start to the season despite not having played competitively for a few months.
“I won the Yorkshire Boys in May, which was a real boost, and it progressed from there. Once I won that first event, I started every tournament thinking only about the win. I just had so much confidence.”
The main challenge to Schmidt in Portugal may come from fellow English international Hopkins, Irish Boys’ Open champion Marshall and Scottish Under-16 Boys’ Open winner Adam.
Hopkins’ 2019 season was disrupted by GCSE exams but he proved two years ago at Quinto do Lago what a talent he is by beating the more experienced Ben Jones by three strokes to become the youngest winner of the Telegraph Junior event at just 14.
The highlight of Marshall’s 2019 campaign came in June when he came from behind to snatch victory from Irish international teammate Luke O’Neill in the Irish Boys’ Open Championship at New Forest in Co. Westmeath. The 18-year-old was five strokes behind with a round to go but birdied both the 16th and 17th to post a 74 in difficult conditions and pip his rival by a stroke.
Adam’s day in the sun came at his home club Royal Burgess in Edinburgh in July when he beat France’s Théodore Reitter in a play-off to be crowned the Scottish Under-16 Open champion. The following week he came tantalisingly close to claiming a memorable international double when he finished second behind Ireland’s Joshua Hill at the English Boys’ Under-16 Open Amateur Stroke Play Championship at Radcliffe on Trent.
This year’s Telegraph Junior is being sponsored for the first time by past US Open and current Olympic champion Rose, whose victory in the event came in 1997.
“This is a nod to where I’ve come from,” the English Ryder Cup player said. “I have done lots of charitable work in the US but this is my first way of trying to give back to golf in the UK and it’s really, really important to me.
“The championship is 35 years old and, as well as me, there have been some other winners who have gone on to big things, including Matt Fitzpatrick, Oliver Fisher, Melissa Reid and Jodi Ewart Shadoff, while the likes of Tommy Fleetwood has finished second.
“The quality of those champions shows it is run incredibly well and I wanted to get behind a well-oiled machine,” he added. “But I would still love to help to grow it. We’ve added some players and some spots to the field this year and my aim is to see different categories going forward and to broaden its reach.”
Thanks to Rose’s largesse, the girls’ field has been expanded to 12, just like the boys’, and in another first two sisters, Mimi and Patience Rhodes, from Burnham and Berrow, will become the first siblings of the same sex to play in the competition.
The Rhodes sisters, who are 17 and 15, respectively, will be playing for both themselves and their grandmother, Susan, who was diagnosed with cancer earlier this year but is now in remission and was well enough to travel to Gleneagles in September to watch English international Mimi represent Europe in the Ping Junior Solheim Cup.
“I will make her really proud and I know she is really happy that we both made it,” said Patience. That sentiment was echoed by the girls’ mother, Penny, who said their grandmother “talks about it constantly and thinks it’s incredible.”
The Rhodes sisters are joined in the field by fellow English internationals Charlotte Heath (Huddersfield), Rosie Belsham (Whitley Bay) and Rafia Banday (Royal Mid-Surrey); Scotland’s Evanna Hyde (Lundin Links) and Carmen Hall (Aboyne); Welsh international Darcey Harry (Vale Resort) plus Chloe Haesler (Broadstone), Lily Hirst (Woodsome Hall), Roisin Scanlon (The Buckinghamshire) and Grace Rigby-Walden (Gerrards Cross).
Scanlon, aged just 12, becomes the youngest finalist in the 35-year history of the event. “I kind of see it as a challenge,” she said. “I always aspire to beat the 17-year-olds as it’s great to have high standards.”
Euan Walker’s hopes of earning a European Tour card at the first attempt are still intact after he successfully came through the tour’s second-stage qualifying event at Las Colinas in southern Spain.
The Scottish Walker Cup player, who turned pro in September, looked to be cruising towards a place in this week’s Final Q-School when he opened with rounds of 65, 74 and 69 but qualified with just a shot to spare after a closing 76.
Denmark’s Andreas Hillersborg, Germany’s Yannik Emmert and English trio Alex Christie, Robin Williams and Haider Hussein were the amateurs who failed to progress to Final Q-School. Among the others to miss out were former Swiss amateur international Mathias Eggenberger and Englishmen Bailey Gill and Jake Burnage.
No amateurs qualified at the second-stage event at Desert Springs where Germany’s Marc Hammer, France’s Jeong weon Ko, Iceland’s Rúnar Arnórsson and Finland’s Alex Hietala all missed out. One of the other casualties there was this year’s Lytham Trophy winner Joshua McMahon. McMahon, Gill and Burnage all turned pro in September.
The other two second stage events at Alenda Golf and Bonmont were delayed by strong winds which meant play was suspended when darkness fell Sunday. The final rounds at both venues were to be completed today.
This year’s Final Q-School starts at its new home at Lumine Golf Club in Tarragona, Spain, on Friday and runs through to the following Wednesday when the sixth and final round is played.
Ireland’s Mark Power, a Wake Forest freshman, ended the fall semester on a high note when he claimed his third successive collegiate top-10 finish at the White Sands Intercollegiate at the Ocean Club Golf Course on Paradise Island in the Bahamas.
The 19-year-old two-time Irish Open Boys’ champion from Kilkenny carded rounds of 71, 67 and 69 to finish tied sixth on 9-under 207. In his previous two starts he finished tied for third at the Golf Club of Georgia Collegiate and then won the stroke-play event at the East Lake Cup.
Power’s English teammate, Alex Fitzpatrick, finished tied for 11th on 210 in a large group that also included his compatriot Jamie Li (Florida State).
PGA professional Luke Willett has raised more than £10,000 for the Golf Foundation after completing an arduous challenge in which he played all 14 Open courses in the space of 10 days.
The golf was the easy bit for the Hamstead professional because as part of the challenge he had to cycle 830 miles between venues, often in inclement weather and with his golf bag containing his four clubs on his back.
The marathon journey started on a high note at Carnoustie where the local Links Trust handed him a cheque for £5,000 in recognition of his efforts. He then made the relatively short hop over the River Tay to St Andrews, where he shot 73 on the Old Course before jumping on his bike again to cycle 60 miles through torrential rain to Edinburgh.
“Each time a car flew past me it was a bit like having a bathtub of ice cold water thrown over me,” he said.
Day 2 started at 5:30 am with a journey south to play Muirfield and Musselburgh and then he cycled across to the west coast for games at Royal Troon and Prestwick before completing his Scottish odyssey the following day in sunshine at Turnberry.
The next part of the journey required taking the ferry to and from Royal Portrush and then it was a 64-mile ride to Royal Lytham & St Annes, followed by games at Royal Birkdale and Royal Liverpool before cycling more than 200 miles to London and then another 119 to Kent to complete the challenge at Royal Cinque Ports, Prince’s and Royal St George’s.
“I was so tired at times but it does show what the human body can do,” said Willett after completing his task. “This is a dream come true. Playing these wonderful Open courses has been a joy as has meeting so many fantastic people wherever I’ve travelled.”
“I’m delighted that I’m able to raise valuable funds for the Golf Foundation,” he added. “We all want more young golfers in Britain and all the money I collect will go towards them getting playing the sport.”
Readers can pledge their support for Willett’s efforts by logging onto his JustGiving page.
Scottish international Keiran Cantley has confirmed he is to turn professional in the aftermath of heading the field at the ProGolf Tour School in Germany.
The 21-year-old from Liberton Golf Club in Edinburgh, who won this year’s Standard Life Gold Medal at Leven in his last event as an amateur, fired rounds of 68 and 70 at Paderborner Land Golf Club and on the back of that success has decided to switch codes at the start of next year.
Cantley will be hoping to follow in the footsteps of Scottish international colleague Craig Howie, who topped the ProGolf Tour Order of Merit in 2018 and as a result earned promotion to the Challenge Tour.
“I will turn pro on Jan. 1 and will start playing all the events on the ProGolf Tour,” Cantley told the Edinburgh Evening News. “It was a case of looking at what tour suits me best and I think it is the one. It preps you for tour life as well. It is a good springboard for me.”
“It’s a good feeling to win at any level,” he added in reference to his Q-School victory. “I already knew I could compete with these guys but, to do it in an event like that, when you are trying to secure a card, is very satisfying indeed.
“I kept my options open by entering as an amateur as I didn’t want to put all my eggs in one basket and find myself stuck in limbo. I wanted a back-up plan but thankfully I don’t need that anymore.”
This year’s ProGolf Tour schedule featured more than 20 events predominantly in Germany but with others in Egypt, Morocco, Poland and the Czech Republic. The top five players on the Order of Merit who were promoted to the Challenge Tour were (in order) Germany’s Hurly Long, Finland’s Sami Välimäki, the Netherlands’ Robbie van West, Germany’s Allen John and Ondrej Lieser from the Czech Republic.
France’s David Ravetto was the leading European finisher at the Juan Carlos Tailhade Cup at the Los Logartos Country Club in Buenos Aires.
The RCF La Boulie member carded rounds of 73, 66, 66 and 72 to finish tied for third, four shots behind Brazil’s Andrey Borges Xavier on 7-under 277. He also teamed up with compatriot Charles Larcelet to finish second, one shot behind hosts Argentina, in the team event on 1-under 567.
The French were one of three European teams to claim a top-10 finish. Spain’s Álvaro Hernández Cabezuela and Asier Aguirre Izcue shared third place and Wales’ Jacob Davies and Jake Hapgood claimed ninth place.
In the individual event, Hernández Cabezuela tied for seventh, Ireland’s Matthew McClean tied for 13th, Larcelet tied for 20th, Davies tied for 24th and Hapgood and Aguirre Izcue tied for 30th.
England’s Ella Ofstedahl (Georgia Southern) and Denmark’s Cecilie Finne-Ipsen (Charlotte) shared medallist honours at the Idle Hour Collegiate at Idle Hour Golf Club in Macon, Georgia.
The 21-year-old Ofstedahl from Woburn started the final round seven shots behind Finne-Ipsen after opening rounds of 68 and 75 but then shot a collegiate personal best 66 to share the spoils with her Danish rival on 7-under 209.
The victory was the second of Ofstedahl’s career and means she has recorded four top-10 finishes in her past six starts and now has seven top-fives, 10 top-10s and 16 top-20s overall.
“We are so happy for Ella this week,” said Georgia Southern coach Emily Kuhfeld. “She played with a lot of fearlessness and grit. It’s always nice to see hard work pay off for good people.”
It proved to be a successful event for the European players because Slovakia’s Laila Hrindova (Mercer) put together rounds of 70, 70 and 73 to finish third on her home course.
Finne-Ipsen’s rounds of 67, 67 and 73 helped Charlotte claim the team prize ahead of hosts Mercer and Georgia Southern.
E-MAIL COLIN