Warwickshire Golf
Bladon wins Warwickshire Seniors Championship
The 2021 Warwickshire Seniors Championship took place on 9th June at Harborne Golf Club.
The weather was on our side along with the conditions of the course to match. However, with greens running at a speedy 11.1 on the stimp metre and a welcome breeze it was no easy pushover.
Harborne Golf Club once again had prepared the course perfectly and we benefitted from bar and food service to match. We are greatly appreciative of the efforts involved and thank the Club from the outset along with Club Manager Darren Murphy for his help in the run up to the event and assistance on the day.
Early indications of scores from the course suggested that it wasn't going to be a low number that lifted the trophy. This was confirmed after a few past Champions of the event returned their score.
With these scores returned the door was pushed a little more ajar for the "˜New Guard' to make their mark on Warwickshire Seniors Golf.
Seniors golf at County and National level begins at 55 years of age, so annually a new batch of eligible contestants come of age and are let loose to take on those players who only recently were classed as the young guns. As the 2020 season was wiped out from Covid restrictions, we had two players of note added to this list.
One of these players was Steve Creed, recently moving Clubs to Stratford upon Avon holds a good County record including holding the office of first team captain a few years ago, winning the National Mid-Am Order of Merit, qualifying to play in the 2017 Seniors Open and most recently finishing 10th in the English Senior Strokeplay Championship. This event being run by the R&A allows players to enter from 50 years of age.
The other was Warren Bladon from Kenilworth Golf Club. Warren came to Harborne finishing in 3rd place at the English Senior Strokeplay Championship and had also competed in the Seniors Open in 2017 as Steve had done. However, Warren had played in the event as a professional and regained his amateur status in 2019. Of course Warren is best known on the course for winning the 1996 British Amateur Championship and earning a spot in the 1997 Masters.
As you can appreciate these two players were somewhat of the hot favourites.
Throughout the round both players fought for top spot along with a third player, Marc Goodwin from Harborne, with all three reaching 2 under par at some point in their round. Marc got to 2 under by the 5th along with Warren and then held the sole lead after the 6th hole.
A couple of dropped shots followed for Marc with Steve and Warren matching hole for hole from the 8th to the 12th with Warren managing to level the curve before Steve to hold onto level par until bogeying the last hole to finish on a one over par 71, to lift the trophy.
Marc suffered over the tough finishing holes at Harborne to finish on 3 over par and Steve managed to only drop one to finish on 2 over and secure second place in the Championship.
As well as the main Championship trophy, there are a number of age-related trophies attached to this event where Harborne members came to the fore with members of the Club winning 3 out of the 5 trophies available.
55-59 Age Group was taken by Championship runner-up Steve Creed (Stratford upon Avon)
60-64 Age Group won by Marc Goodwin (Harborne) as well as third place overall
65-69 Age Group won by Don Carter (Harborne) with a 77
70 and over Age Group won for the third time by Keith Turton (Harborne) who also returned a 77
From winning this Championship, Warren qualifies for the English Senior Champion of Champions event at Woodhall Spa in September and the top 8 now qualify for the Warwickshire Senior Matchplay Championship. The draw for this can be found by CLICKING HERE
Congratulation go to Warren Bladon on winning the Championship and good luck at Woodhall Spa.
FOR FULL LEADERBOARD WITH DIVISION RESULTS CLICK HERE
Matt Nixon
Created by intelligentgolf version 10.1.2.
