ST ANNES, ENGLAND | There was something of a generational contrast afoot in the small Lancashire seaside town of St Annes last week.
Beyond the confines of Royal Lytham & St Annes Golf Club there are all manner of care homes, nursing lodges and retirement villages. Out on the golf course, however, it was less about winding down and far more about winding up a career.
In all, 144 (mostly) young hopefuls were teeing it up in the 56th Lytham Trophy, and they were keen to add their names to the honours board which they passed every day on the clubhouse staircase.
Perhaps, as they climbed to the first floor, they noted that six of the last nine winners were competing in the DP World Tour’s Catalunya Championship; maybe they saw victory on this famous layout as the next step, not only on their way to refreshment in the bar, but also in their own journey to the top of the European game.
As if in recognition of the three-year lapse since the last tournament, locals out on the fairways were quick to reminisce about recent champions. While they were excited that Sweden’s Marcus Kinhult and South Africa’s Thriston Lawrence have advanced to the winner’s circle on the DP World Tour, they were concerned that the Dutchman Daan Huizing and the English trio of Jack Senior, Jack Singh Brar and Matthew Jordan are still looking for breakthroughs despite each one displaying a seaside skill set that separated him from the pack in style.
Conversation moved toward the theory that British and Irish amateur golf, mostly played on linksland and heathland, offers artisans opportunities, while the professional tours, with their modern tracks and resort layouts, favour the mass producer. Or maybe we were confusing our earlier discussion of craft beer with the action in front of us.
For others, victory was not the sole aim. The Swedish golf team was making its first visit to the linksland in three years. The boys team competes in a related junior competition at nearby Fairhaven Golf Club, and the combined adventure provides valuable experience in the growth of the nation’s hottest prospects. Or it did. Two sets of in-takes have progressed to college golf in the States without those linksland lessons undertaken. The latest crop was excited by the return to tradition post-lockdown, giddily practising escapes from tiny pot bunkers the likes of which they had not encountered.
Out on the course, this was not the worst weather that a northern English spring has thrown at the event. Members possess an encyclopaedic recollection of weather conditions, stretching back through Opens, Senior Opens, a Women’s Open and Walker Cups, never mind the Lytham Trophy itself. They were quick to indicate that cold air, a nasty breeze off the Irish Sea and drizzle that hangs in the air like smoke from a damp garden fire counts as decent scoring conditions.
The field begged to differ.
With one exception. Irishman Eoin Murphy wore shorts and trundled through the field in Sunday morning’s third round. He tied the 54-hole lead with England’s John Gough, a man in form following victories in last year’s English and Palmetto amateur championships, plus this season’s Spanish Amateur.
Murphy fell back in the final round, as did fellow Irishman Robert Moran, who was followed in the last group by his uncle, the former Manchester United star Kevin Moran. Gough’s strongest challenger proved to be Connor Graham, the precocious 15-year-old Scot of an age to play the Fairhaven event, but with the talent to compete with his elders.
Throwing himself into every shot, Graham mounted a furious charge for the line and set a clubhouse target of 1-over-par 281. He was concerned that a bogey at the par-4 17th might prove costly, little knowing that Gough was making a hat trick of bogeys from the 14th to join him on that number.
When the Englishman missed the 17th green, his title bid was echoing the late demise of Adam Scott in the 2012 Open. Whereupon Gough found the inspiration to bump the ball into the upslope, giving it sufficient impetus to ride the putting surface and drop for a birdie that re-established his lead.
“I don’t think I’ll ever forget that shot,” Gough said later, after a par at the last had confirmed victory. “And do you know what? A few years ago I heard about someone chipping in on 17. When I stood there, I remembered it and knew I could do it, too.”
How does this triumph compare to those others in the last 12 months? “Oh, this one is special because I always used to play the Fairhaven event and we always looked up to Lytham Trophy players,” he said. “We’d wander out to watch them and always thought they were a different class. I’ve never got to play here until this week because I was always in America, at college [at North Carolina-Charlotte].”
And now he has experienced it, what did he make of this famous test with its menacing fairways bunkers? “I always knew it was hard and that it was mentally draining,” he said, before adding with a relieved laugh: “But perhaps 36 holes in a day is my limit.”
RESULTS
Matt Cooper