The Worcestershire U18 boys’ team arrived at Wharton Park Golf Club, in an attempt to win the prestigious Severnside Four Counties Trophy. The tournament is played over 2 days and involves playing 8 singles matches against each of the other counties that include Gwent, Glamorgan and Gloucestershire. 

With a squad made up of mostly younger players that will all be available next year. The team made a good start on Tuesday afternoon but were narrowly beaten by Gloucs 5-3 in a match in which we were in the ascendancy for long periods but just fell short despite good wins from Tom Blizzard, Tom Griffiths and debutant Harry Fall.

Despite the disappointment of the previous day, the boys came out with a determined attitude on Wednesday morning and played exceptionally well to defeat a strong Glamorgan team. A number of the matches were very tight going into the back 9 but several of our team impressively managed to turn their games around to eventually run out winners by 5 matches to 3. There were excellent wins for Mark Hewlett (Capt), Tom Blizzard, Tom Griffiths, Harry Evans and Teddy Fee. 

At this stage of the competition, and with one match each remaining; three counties had the opportunity to win the competition so the last matches had great significance. Our task was to beat our afternoon opponents Gwent and hope that would be good enough. We decided to keep our order the same for this match and the early signs were encouraging with Mark Hewlett and Tom Blizzard leading from the front with some excellent golf in their respective matches, and with Alex Perry dominating his match we were up in 3 of the first 4 games. Gwent fought back hard in the middle to lower order to leave the match on a knife-edge. Harry Fall held his nerve to close his match out on the 17th to secure our fourth point and ensure the match finished all square at 4-4.

Unfortunately, a draw wasn’t quite good enough as Gloucs won their remaining match to take the title, but a more than creditable second place finish for Worcs was a great result for the team that played tirelessly over a very long 2 days.

I would like to thank everyone involved with the organisation of the event, and especially Ian Griffiths for his efforts in bringing it all together. The hospitality at Wharton Park Golf Club was excellent and my thanks go to the catering staff and the grounds team for producing the course in excellent condition. As always, my thanks go to Alex Band, Luke Perry and Mark Evans for their continued assistance with the team and to County President John Whitehead for attending the event and offering his support, which was much appreciated.

We all look forward to next year’s event, which will be hosted by Gwent on 21st and 22nd Aug 2025.

Kevin Fee

U18s Team Manger

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