Open hero Tom bids for English amateur crown

Following his headline-grabbing display in the Open Championship at Sandwich in which he won the silver medal as leading amateur, Tom Lewis now turns his attention to the English Amateur Championship at Woburn Golf Club later this month.

The 20 year old England international will be hoping to replicate the form he showed at Royal St George’s, as he seeks to reinforce his claim for selection to the GB&I Walker Cup team, for the match against the United States at Royal Aberdeen in September. 

First he must claim a place in the leading 64 players and ties after two qualifying stroke play rounds which begin when he tees off at 10.10am on the Marquess Course on Monday 25th, followed by a round over the Duchess Course at 2.40pm on the following day.

Lewis (Welwyn Garden Cioty GC) will be joined by his England team-mates in pursuit of arguably the biggest prize in the English amateur game, including Neil Raymond (Corhampton, Hampshire, IoW & CI) who will be chasing ‘the double’ having already collected the Brabazon Trophy last month at Burnham & Berrow.

Few players manage to lift both titles in the same year, the most recent being Mark Foster, who won the English Amateur at Hunstanton in 1995 after sharing the Brabazon with current England captain Colin Edwards at Hillside.

Two other England caps, Darren Wright (Rowlands Castle, Hampshire, IoW & CI) and Jack Senior (Heysham, Lancashire) can also be considered among the favourites for the title, while others who cannot be discounted are Stiggy Hodgson (Sunningdale, Surrey), Dave Coupland (Boston, Lincolnshire), Steven Brown (Wentworth, Surrey) and Ben Loughrey (Wrag Barn, Wiltshire).

A string of boy internationals are also in the quality field including Callum Shinkwin (Moor Park, Hertfordshire), the 2010 English boy champion, Curtis Griffiths (Wentworth, Surrey), Toby Tree (Worthing, Sussex), and Seb Crookall-Nixon (Workington, Cumbria).

The event this year is being sponsored by abacus, the official on course clothing supplier of the English Golf Union.

A total of 288 leading players will be at Woburn, seeking to join a long and exclusive list of English champions. They will play one round of stroke play qualifying over each course in the opening two days, with the leading 64 players and ties going forward to the knockout stages over 18 holes of the Marquess Course.

Over 400 players filed entries with the cut-off coming at scratch, 34 of the 121 players off that handicap getting in, the rest being balloted out to a reserve list.

The Championship starts at 7am on Monday 25th July and culminates with the 36-hole final on Saturday 30th. Latest scores and news updates can be found on the EGU website www.englishgolfunion.org