Blog
British Amateur Championship
Recently I arrived home from England and the British Amateur with ¾ of Canada’s National Amateur Team. Matt hill, Eugene Wong and Lindsey Reynolds were there to compete on the second biggest amateur even in the world; the British Amateur. 288 of the top amateurs in the world complete 36 holes to try and get into the match play portion which consists of the top 64 players. The winner of this event is invited to compete in the Masters and the British Open the following year. The even was played at the Formby Golf club and the West Lancashire Golf Club which are just outside of Southport. Having never been to England before I really loved the links style golf courses, where the fescue just off the fairway is waist high and strategically placed pot bunkers are a part of every hole. This is definitely target golf and not a place to take out driver on every hole and just try to hit it as far as possible. In many cases the tee shot would be with a 3 or 4 iron down the firm, fast fairway to avoid the deep pot bunkers and fescue that almost certainly would lead to a bogey.
The amazing thing is that I had never heard of the Formby Golf Club or the West Lancashire Golf Cub and yet they are both over 110 years old and two of the best courses I had ever seen. A huge factor at these types of courses is the weather. Because they are not super long, in ideal conditions the courses are very scoreable. But that is rarely the case. The first two days we played in excellent conditions with very little wind and then all of the sudden, the weather changed. The third day had 60 mph winds and rain that was coming down straight sideways. At one point during Eugene’s second round match, I thought he wouldn’t be able to hit his next shot without the wind blowing him over. The weather conditions made it that in the first couple days a good score would be 70 or 71, but when the wind and rain came in, anything under 78 became a solid round.
Even though the courses we played did not have many trees I still found them to be beautiful to the eye and to play. The course conditions were fair but not perfect. The fairways and greens were in very good shape, as were the bunkers. The rough and other areas were “groomed by nature!” If you hit it off the fairways – you paid the price.
I found the people in England very friendly. We were in Southport which is right along the coast, about half an hour from Liverpool and an hour from Manchester. Southport is a smaller, tourist town with some beautiful views and history. Products in England are a lot more expensive than in Canada, in most cases almost double the price. It was interesting driving on the wrong side of the street compared to Canada. At times, I would forget and be on the wrong side of the street wondering why everyone was honking at me! Then the English were not as friendly as I mentioned earlier!
Click Here for pictures from Derek's visit to the British Amateur Championship
