Surrey Golf YearBook 2016 Revised | Page 28

SURREY GOLF TEXT 2016_Surrey Golf Inside 06 03/03/2016 07:42 Page 26 U18 Team - (Manager Alan Page) This year was our busiest yet as we played our normal set of matches and also took part in the new U18 League that is being run by the EGU South East Region. Our Captain was Max O’Hagan (West Hill). During the year we used 21 players. The new League is run by EGU SE region and we are part of the South Section and play group matches and the winner goes forward to play the final against the winners from the Central and South Sections – there are 11 Counties involved in total. Our Section includes us, Hampshire, Kent and Sussex and we play one home and two away matches. After two matches we were leading the group but in the last match of the series we beat Hampshire but lost to Sussex – who in turn beat Hampshire so won our section and went onto the Final. In a friendly match against Hampshire (at Clandon Regis) we lost but that was a poor performance in the foursomes and although we won the singles it was not enough to win the match. We play against Leinster from Ireland and for the first time hosted them at Reigate Hill. We agreed with Leinster that it would be aimed at younger players from across age groups U15 to U18 with 8 a side played over 36 holes. We played 4BBB for the first 18 holes and were down 2.5pts to 1.5pts but then in the singles won 4.5pts to 3.5pts so the overall result was a draw at 6 pts each. This match is a very high standard and we had two England players in our team and Leinster also had international players and included Mark Power who is taken to be the best player in Ireland at his age group – Max O’Hagan beat him in the 4BBB and drew in the singles. Arrun Singh Brar was exceptional in the singles and we think was 5 under par when he won – he wasn’t sure what it was! Friendship Trophy We are lucky to take part in the Friendship Trophy and this is against other teams from across Europe – Midi Pyrenees from France, Catalunya from Spain and Nordrhein Westfallen from Germany. This is the fourth time we have taken part and this year was hosted by the French and we played on a Championship course (Toulouse Sielh GC) just outside of Toulouse. The teams are 4 boys and 2 girls and this year we took Max O’Hagan, Harvey Byers, Alfie Fox, Cameron Bell, Martha Lewis and Lauren Horsford – all very strong players. The event is supported by the European Tour and they provide the main Trophy and gifts for each of the players – Jose Maria Olazabal also supports the event as it is designed to promote friendship across different countries and is a great event. We played some brilliant golf from all the team and it is a gross stroke play event over 36 holes – we won the event again this year as we had won in 2014 in Germany and 2013 when we hosted the event at Wentworth. The standard of golf is very high for all teams and the combined handicap for the 6 players of Surr ey was +1. EG South East Region events The South East Region run three events and we are involved in all three – a Junior Championship, Foursomes Championship and Qualifier for the National County Finals. We hosted the Junior Championship at Effingham this year and we had an exceptional result in that we came 1st, 2nd and 4th – Cameron Bell (Woodcote Park) won the Championship with a gross 141 (72 and 69), with Angus Flanagan (St Georges Hill) second and Tom Farrow-Smith (Burhill) forth. An excellent result for Surrey as there were 84 players involved from across all Counties in the SE Region. We played in the SE Region foursomes and qualifier but did not do as well as we had hoped. - 26 -