Telfer Takes Courage Title

FORMER Saints and Leeds footballer Paul Telfer should know a thing about giant-killing, having been on the receiving end, and having helped Celtic pull off a shock in the Champions League by beating Manchester United.

But now, 15 years after the retirement of the defender – who was capped once by Scotland and signed twice in his career by Gordon Strachan – the 53-year-old Hockley member, has pulled off one of the biggest shocks in county golf over the last 20 years.

Telfer, who has been a self-confessed golf nut since hanging up his boots – produced the “best 36 holes of his life” to claim the county strokeplay championship, which dates back to 1963.

Indeed the first ever Courage Trophy was presented by three-time Open winner Sir Henry Cotton at Bournemouth’s Queens Park GC back in 1963 when Brokenhurst Manor’s John Brander claimed the new trophy, bearing the brewing giant’s name.

Telfer beat a field containing nearly all of the UK-based members of Toby Burden’s Hampshire first-team squad. He was last-man standing with North Hants’ Rob Wheeler leading in the clubhouse on level-par.

The latter had bounced back from a first-round 74 to shoot an excellent 68, having won the Army’s Bren Gun Open back in June.

The 22-year-old from Aldershot was favourite to claim the Courage, which would also almost guarantee he would win his first Cullen Quaich for topping the Hampshire Golf Order of Merit.

But Telfer, who has shown a liking for the Laffans Road course in the past, had other ideas.

Playing with former Hampshire Mid-Amateur Champion Mark Burgess on the other side of the course to Wheeler, the former Saints full-back turned in two-under par after lunch.

After a first-round 71 had left him as the surprise leader on level-par, Telfer made back-to-back birdies at the 12th and 13th before reeling off five successive pars.

But the former Stoneham member, who started his footballing career as a midfielder at Luton in 1988 – before moving to Coventry on his way to four-year spell at St Mary’s – went on the attack.

He made a birdie four at the par-five first, and extended his lead with a birdie three at the third.

A bogey at the short fifth – his fourth of the day – took him back to three-under.

Telfer was unaware that Wheeler, playing two groups ahead of the leader, had got to level-par with two birdies and an eagle at the 12th.

But the Scottish international extended his lead again with a birdie at the final hole, the ninth.

As he walked back to the clubhouse with Burgess, word of his four-under total quickly spread to spike Wheeler’s hopes, and add the Hampshire Mid-Amateur crown to his trophy cabinet, with the leading score for the Over 35s.

North Hants’ James Atkins, who started the day 0.17 points behind Wheeler in the Order of Merit standings, needed to finish ahead of Wheeler – once he finished in the top five – to have any kind of lead going into the final event – this week’s delayed Hampshire Open at Hockley.

Atkins, who reached the last four of the Hampshire, Isle of Wight and Channel Islands Amateur Championship in June, carded rounds of 73 and 71 to finish two back in third.

Former Hampshire Junior Champion Alex Talbot lost out on countback for third, after he and former Hampshire Boys player Anthony Hobbs, from Stoneham, both shot 76 and 70.

Atkins also had the consolation of collecting the Cole Scuttle for the best 72-hole aggregate in the qualifying rounds of the county championship, where he finished second, and the Courage.

Among the first-team players trailing Telfer were four-time county champion Ryan Henley, 10 shots back in seventh.

Eleven-time Hampshire Mid-Amateur Martin Young, from Brokenhurst Manor, who also has five Courage Trophies to his name, was 15th on 12-over, at the course where he won his first Sloane-Stanley Challenge Cup in the county final, in 2011.

Hayling’s county captain Toby Burden, who won his first county championship crown at Army GC five years ago, was a shot back in 17th, beating Burgess on countback. 

A delighted Telfer said: “I qualified in 16th place at the county championship at Army GC in 2019.

“In the matchplay, I beat the top seed Conor Richards, who had won the Pechell Salver for finishing first the day before, in the first round.

“But Toby took me apart in the afternoon’s quarter-final, I have always said any time I can finish ahead of the likes of Martin Young, Ryan Henley, and Toby, I must have played blinking well.

“I take my hat off to those guys. I can play a bit, but they are so good and deserve the coverage more than me because of how good they are.

“Today, I played the best 36-holes ever in my life. No question.

“I know the Army’s head greenkeeper Phil Wentworth very well – been mates with him for years, so I know the course well and enjoy playing here.

“It was really firm and fast out there. It was in fact much more like a links course than a parkland track. You had to pitch the ball quite a way short on some of the holes and let the ball run out on the green.

“‘I think some of the guys struggled with that. I had been back up to Scotland in the last couple of weeks and played Luffness, Archerfield and Gullane. 

“They are all top links courses that have hosted big professional events. I think that helped get my game ready for the challenge here.

“I played the course as if it was a links.”

Telfer also carried off the handicap prize, playing off scratch, while North Hants’ former county captain Neil Dawon was four shots back in second with nett scores of 68 and 74, having led at lunch, with Wheeler third, playing off plus-one.

The new Courage champion also took the Mid-Am title by eight shots to become the third different player since 2011 to have won the double on the day, after Toby Burden (2021 and 2022) and Martin Young.

Hobbs was in second place in the over 35s, having produced a six-shot improvement on his opening 76.

Sanford Springs’ former England international James Knight, who won The Berkshire Trophy, and The Berkhamsted Trophy twice, as well as being a member of Hampshire’s English County Championship winning side with Justin Rose in 1996, was third after rounds of 76 and 71.

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