The U16’s boys set off from Bromsgrove GC early on Monday morning heading up the M6 to North Staffordshire and Onneley Golf Club for the annual tri series match. A chilly wet morning greeted us when we arrived but this did not dampen the enthusiasm of the team. This tricky format consists of each group playing against two teams at the same time.

The morning foursomes did not start great with both the first two groups going behind early on, the following two matches steadied the ship and the pairing of Oli Badger and Harry Fall were always up in their matches and ran out comfortable winners in both games. A solid 1.5 points form the pairing of Callum Jones and Joe Lonergan and a great turnaround win from Alex Perry and Harry Evans meant we went in at lunch with a creditable 4.5 points form the morning foursomes. S&H on 4 pts and staffs on 3.5 pts.

 With a very quick turnaround for the afternoon singles, it already looked like the Trophy was going to be a tight run race between all three counties.

George Stephens was in determined mood and got us off to the perfect start against both their number one players. He won against S&H (4&3) and won against Staffs (2&1), with two wins for Captain Teddy Fee (5&4 and 3&2), a further win from Harry Evans (6&4). The remarkable Alex Perry who never knows when he is beaten, turned his matches around from being down in both games through the turn to getting 1.5 points with a win on the last hole.

6.5 points out of the opening 8 points available was an unbelievable return for the Worcs team to start the singles, just emphasising the boys’ determination.

Further wins followed for Joe Lonergan (6&4) and the very impressive Harry Fall who holed a number of outstanding clutch putts to totally control both of his matches (5&4 and 3&1).

This left the coaching team pondering how many points we needed to be certain of lifting the trophy.  After some frantic scribbling on the back of a scorecard we were still none the wiser so when our anchor man  Callum Jones held his nerve brilliantly on the 18^th to hole his putt from 4 feet to win his match (1up) we began to wonder if we’d done enough.

There were a tense few minutes waiting for the scores to be added up and the results declared, and yes, sure enough Worcs were announced the winners by 3.5 points to the delight of the whole team. This was a magnificent effort from the boys with each of them delivering a minimum of 1.5 points on the day, so truly a team effort.

Overall results 

Tri-match Trophy

• Worcestershire 15 points 
• S&H 11.5 points 
• Staffordshire 9 points

League Matches

• Worcs beat Staffs 8-4
• Worcs beat S&H 7-5
• S&H beat Staffs 6.5-5.5

Our thanks go to everyone at Staffs for organising the event. Onneley Golf club for hosting and their fine hospitality. Parents for the early drop off and late pick up. My thanks also go to Luke Perry and Mark Evans for their help and support on the day.

However, a huge thank you goes to each one of our players. Their attitude, etiquette and team spirit was exemplary throughout the day and we are all very proud of you. A well-deserved victory.

Kevin Fee

County U16 Team Manager 

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