Hampshire Golf Limited
Challenge League Off To A Flying Start!
Hampshire’s bid to win the Challenge League at the third attempt got off to a solid start as captain Harrison Park wheeled out two of the county’s big guns for their first home match of the South East League season against Sussex.
Rowlands Castle’s former Great Britain and Ireland International Darren Wright, and three-time county champion Ryan Henley, from Stoneham, were called up for their Challenge League debuts as Sussex were beaten 7-5 at The Army GC.
Wright, is one of just 10 people who have won both the Carris and Brabazon Trophies at England’s Boys’ and Men’s Amateur Strokeplay Championships in their career, and last played regularly for the county’s first-team in 2021 when matches were restricted to just singles games because of COVID.
He still hits the ball a very long way, and while he may be restricted in the amount he practices – running his own property maintenance business – and the presence of the former EuroPro Tour winner was a big plus for the home side.
Henley has not played for the Colts since breaking into the first team some 25 years ago but was the unlucky one before lunch as Hampshire reeled off three victories out of four in the foursomes.
Ryan, who was beaten in the final at Blackmoor last summer defending the Hampshire, Isle of Wight and Channel Island Amateur crown he won at Hockley in 2023, lost on the last playing with Sherfield Oaks’ Tom Conquest against Sussex veteran Richard Leeves, partnered by James Lynch.
Wright enjoyed a more successful return to the squad having made his debut back in 2006, the year he won the Carris Trophy, also earning his call-up into the England Boys team for the Home Internationals.
He partnered Romsey’s Ben Cox in the second match out and hung on for a one-hole win against Sussex’s Drew Bailey and Mark Robertson.
Hampshire’s 2020 county champion Richard Harris was the third player with first-team experience called into Pake’s side, and the Hayling man teamed up with Corhampton’s Connor Babington, another to graduate from the Boys’ squad.
They beat former Sussex county champion and captain Steve Watts, playing with Will Gibb, also on the last, leaving Pake – playing with Stoneham team-mate Harrison Price – to win the 18th to wrap up their two-hole victory over Chris Parsons and Toby Graves.
Pake bravely sent out Conquest at the top of the afternoon singles order, and if there were any nerves, they did not stop him claiming his first half-a-point in Hampshire colours, by holding the vastly-more experienced Leeves.
With Hampshire needing just three wins from the other seven games, Henley’s 3&2 defeat against Gibb was quickly forgotten on a course where he had contested the 2011 final, when Martin Young claimed his first of three Sloane-Stanley Challenge Cups.
Wright, who played for Great Britain & Ireland in the 2010 St Andrews Trophy, cruised to a 4&3 victory over Bailey, the most promising youngster in the Sussex ranks. He never looked back after making an eagle at the sixth.
His maximum return was quickly followed by Cox’s second point of the day, after his 3&2 win over Robertson – a fine start on his Challenge League debut.
Cox had been called into the Challenge League team for the first time after his strong showing in last month’s West of England Amateur Championship, when he overcame a first round 81 with a sparkling last round 69, matching the lowest score of the day on his way to 13th place at Royal North Devon’s Westward Ho!
The race was on to claim the winning point over the Laffin links, and Price, who has completed his first year in the States on a NAIA golf scholarship at Tusculum University, in Tennessee, obliged with a 3&2 win over Parsons.
Harris – a regular in last season’s Hampshire team that reached the South East Challenge League Final for a second year in a row, held on for a 2&1 victory over Lynch to make 71/2-3/12 to the hosts.
Pake had left himself in the anchor role over the Aldershot heathland course, which can be tricky when very firm, after the recent long dry spell, but with the points already in the bag, the skipper lost the 17th to go down 3&1 against Graves.
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