Northumberland’s Andrew Minnikin was crowned as the new English Men’s Champion of Champions after beating English junior international Seb Cave and Gloucestershire men’s champion Nick Day by two shots in this year’s event over the Hotchkin course at Woodhall Spa.
Minnikin carded rounds of 70 and 69 to finish the event on 7-under-par 139 and add his first individual national title to the English and European Champion Club titles he won with his City of Newcastle team-mates in 2019.
It also capped a splendid season for the Northumberland champion because earlier this year he had finished second behind another City of Newcastle stalwart, Phil Ridden, in the Logan Trophy (English Mid-Amateur Championship).
Minnikin owed his victory to a sparkling back nine, which he completed in 4-under par with birdies at his last two holes.
“It feels fantastic,” Minnikin said. “I’ve played a number of national events as an individual over the years and had a bit of success with a couple of second-place finishes, but never quite got over the line so this feels amazing.
“I felt in control of my game, which is nice, and I was stroking the ball well on the greens so I knew that if I needed to find a couple of birdies I had the potential to do that.
“It’s nice to get the job done.”
Warwickshire champion Cave carded rounds of 73 and 68 to finish second alongside Day but will have bittersweet memories of his weekend in Lincolnshire having also finished second 24 hours earlier in the English Boys’ County Champion of Champions over the same Hotchkin course.
On that occasion, Cave carded rounds of 73 and 70 to finish on 3-under-par 143 but was pipped by Yorkshire’s Dylan Shaw-Radford who birdied his last two holes to add a 71 to his opening 70 and complete a two-shot victory on 5-under-par 141.
Shaw-Radford’s victory saw him follow in the footsteps of Matt Fitzpatrick and 2021 Walker Cup team member Ben Schmidt by becoming the third Yorkshireman to claim the English Boys’ County Champion of Champions title.
“I kept it in play off the tee and tried to hit a lot of fairways and managed to do that and shoot nice scores,” said the fast-finishing champion. “I had a feeling someone would shoot a low one in the afternoon and I knew I had to go under par again. I tried to extend the lead.”
Asked what it felt like to duplicate the successes of fellow Yorkshiremen Fitzpatrick and Schmidt, he added: “I hope I can do what they have done. That would be nice.”
The England Golf 2021 season concludes with this week’s English Champion Club competition at Knole Park and the following week’s English Men’s County Finals at Remedy Oaks.
The Men’s and Boys’ tournaments were two of six end-of-season events staged at Woodhall Spa as the 2021 England Golf season starts to draw to a close.
The English Senior Men’s County Champion of Champions was won by Leicestershire & Rutland’s Steve Sansome who carded two rounds of 71 on the Hotchkin course to hold off the challenge of former R&A Amateur champion Warren Bladon and complete a one-shot victory on 4-under-par 142. It was his first national success as a senior having turned 55 earlier this year.
Warwickshire senior county champion Bladon had an eagle putt on the last but narrowly missed and had to settle for second place on 143, five shots ahead of Lancashire’s Garry Lacy. Northamptonshire’s Gary Grimmitt and Staffordshire’s Robert Aston were tied fourth two shots further back.
“It’s a great feeling,” said Sansome, who plays out of the Birstall Golf Club to the north of Leicester. “It’s always difficult to get over the line and every time you do it you still get the same buzz.
“It’s the competition that makes you want to come back and get better. You still want to improve even as old as I am.
“It’s my first year as a senior and a great honour and hopefully it may get me through to other things in the future.”
The equivalent women’s events were played the previous weekend over Woodhall Spa’s Bracken course and on that occasion Derbyshire’s Hannah Morrison carded two rounds of 73 to win the 2021 English Women’s County Champion of Champions.
She carded a quadruple bogey on the 13th hole of her second round but then bounced back with birdies on the 14th and the 16th and an eagle on the 17th to finish three shots ahead of Durham’s Shannon O’Dwyer and four in front of Katy Yates from Essex.
“It’s a massive honour, especially for someone who comes from a small county,” Morrison said. “I was hitting it really well but I made a few unnecessary bogeys, but then managed to putt good which really helped me. I had the horrible quadruple bogey on the 13th hole in the second round but I knew I could make up for that later on.”
There was an even more convincing win in the English Senior Women’s County Champion of Champions in which the experienced English senior international Jackie Foster fired rounds of 73 and 72 to finish an impressive eight shots ahead of Kent’s Kim Morris on 1-over-par 145.
Morris recorded a 76 and a 77 to claim second place while a second-round of 80 saw Dorset’s Jane Southcombe drop from second to third on the leaderboard. Leicestershire & Rutland’s Helen Lowe, Aileen Greenfield from Sussex and Norfolk’s Karen Young all shared fourth place on 155.
“It feels absolutely amazing,” said Foster, a Bishops Stortford player who succeeds Alison Kelly and Amanda Mayne as champion. “I’m really thrilled.”
The English Girls’ County Champion of Champions title went to Amy Knotts from Essex who carded two rounds of 73 to claim an emphatic five-shot victory ahead of Faye Wheatley from Durham.
Wheatley added a 75 to her opening 76 to finish second on 7-over-par 151 while Salysa Mason from Sussex was third on 153 and Hertfordshire’s Anna Malloy one shot further back in fourth.
“It feels good. It’s nice to win on a national level,” Knotts said. “I felt confident. I knew the holes I could take advantage of after my practice round.
“I knew I just had to keep going and not worry about other people and what they were up to because I can only control what I’m doing so I just stayed in the moment and took it one shot at a time.”
This week the English men’s international team are also in action at the R&A Men’s Home Internationals at Hankley Common, where a team led by 2021 national champion John Gough will be bidding to defend the title they won last time out at Lahinch in 2019. The 2020 event was cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Top: Andrew Minnikin claimed his first individual title as English Men’s Champion of Champions at Woodhall Spa.
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