Yorkshire Boys' resounding win gives notice in English championship chase

Yorkshire Boys' team busy at work on the practice green at Northamptonshire County GC.

Last year they finished just half a match point short of winning the title at Cumberwell Park.

Team manager Philip Woodcock saw instant proof that his side do not want to be hostage to such a misfortune again by following up a 3-0 win in the morning’s foursomes session with a 5-1 margin in the singles.

“Overall I was delighted with the boys’ performance around a testing track,” said Woodcock. “The greens are very tricky with plenty of slopes and borrows.

James Swash (Middlesbrough) and Ben Schmidt (Rotherham) check out the line of a putt.

“They all played good golf; we now need to take this on to the match against Staffordshire.”

In Tuesday’s other match, Staffordshire went down 5.5-3.5 to Berks, Bucks & Oxon, and the latter will face Somerset on Wednesday.

Yorkshire’s first-day win owed a lot to the early momentum provided by the first and last foursomes pairings – Callum Macfie (Lindrick) and George Heath (Woodsome Hall) plus Charlie Daughtrey (Rotherham) and Michael Hay (Hunley Hall).

Each duo was three up after five holes and the first pair off took complete command of their match, being seven up at the turn.

A couple of errant tee shots saw them hand back two holes, but they went on to win 6&5.

Daughtrey and Hay, meanwhile, produced some steady golf to be five up at 12, before Somerset pulled a couple of holes back. However, a par at the testing 16 th produced a 4&2 win for the Yorkshire combination.

The middle game involving James Swash (Middlesbrough) and Ben Schmidt (Rotherham) was closer with Yorkshire one up through five.

Uncharacteristic errors saw three holes go Somerset’s way and the Yorkshire duo faced a two-hole deficit.

But they responded well to play some great golf, pulling themselves back to one up after 16.

On the 17th, with Somerset in deep rough to the right of the green and Yorkshire short of it, Swash played a magnificent chip into the hole to clinch a 2&1 win.

Abbeydale’s Jack Leversidge got his first taste of action as Schmidt was rested in the afternoon singles.

Hay had a tough game out first, but managed to pull off a 3&2 victory having been one down until the 13th, where he got the match back to square and then proceeded to take charge.

Swash found his driver betraying him at times and was closed out 4&2.

But Heath took command of his game to win convincingly, 7&5, and further wins followed from Macfie (4&3), Leversidge (4&3) and Daughtrey (6&4).