Yorkshire golf: White Rose players riding high in North of England Open at Alwoodley

Masham’s Dan Brown, who won the English men’s amateur championship at Ganton in July, shot a one-under-par 70 to be hot on the heels of leader Benjamin Jones (Northamptonshire County).

Alongside Brown on 70 are Shipley’s Will Whiteoak – who, with Brown, helped Yorkshire win the England men’s county championship at the weekend – and Lee Westwood Trophy winner Nick Poppleton (Wath).

Yorkshire match play champion Bailey Gill (Lindrick), Hallowes’ Sam Bairstow and Ben Firth (Moortown) are on 72 with another Lindrick man, Nathan Fell, on 73.

The day finished with seven Yorkshire players inside the top 20 and 13 among the leading 30 players.

Cookridge Hall’s Tom Broxup produced a three-over-par 74, as did Malton & Norton’s David Hague, while on 75 are Yorkshire stroke play champion Ben Hutchinson and his Moortown club-mate Paul Snowden, Luke Palmowski (Hickleton) and Fulford's James Cass.

Twenty eight counties from England, plus some from Wales, Scotland and Ireland, are represented at Alwoodley in a field including 20 of England Golf’s top 30 players.

Former Yorkshire county player Jonathan Thomson shot a 75 in the first stage of the European Tour's Qualifying School at Ribagolfe, in Lisbon.

He raced to three under after six holes, birdieing the second, fifth and sixth.

But he gave all three shots back at the next, a 459-yard par-4, with a triple bogey and three more went with a bogey at the 11th being preceded by a double bogey at 10.