U18s Junior Boys County Championships Midland's Qualifier

Ollie Penberthy - U18 Junior Boys Captain

This year Belton Park was the glorious venue for this prestigious event. Last year at Overstone G.C. we finished a close 2nd to Cambridge so we had high hopes of another good performance.
Northamptonshire fielded a strong team with 6 experienced golfers captained by Ollie Penberthy.
The weather had been dry for weeks but the night before and the morning of the event, the heavens' opened meaning a 30 minute delay in starting the competition was called. The Greenkeepers worked wonders and by the time we started the Course was back to a wonderful condition with just a few bunkers left with water in them. Two rounds were played during the day with the best 5 out of the 6 players having their scores to count for the team total of each round. 
Our players were well prepared after a practice round the afternoon before the event and all considered the Course to be excellent and scoreable.
When battle commenced we did not post the scores that we hoped for and after the first round we were languishing near the bottom of the 10 Counties in attendance with Worcester leading. Ryan Statham, who had been selected for the Mens' County 2nds and had a convincing singles win, just couldn't get going on the day and his scores were not counted for either round. On the other hand, Ollie Penberthy did everything possible to post good scores, with at least 2 chip ins and several up and down pars. He posted rounds of 72 in the morning and also in the afternoon. Jadon Pham found some of his form in round 2 and was under par with a few holes to play but a few bogeys towards the end brought his round 2 score to 2 over par 73. 
Our team score for round 2 showed a 9 shot improvement from Round 1 but still wasn't enough to lift us off the foot of the table. The winners by 1 shot were Cambridgeshire for the 2nd year in a row.
Northamptonshire Scores were as follows -

We now move on to the Junior Anglian League qualifier to be played at Kibworth G.C., Leicestershire, in July.

Jadon Pham and Ollie Samler U18 Junior Boys players