Yorkshire Am Am Series provides exciting addition to calendar at Alwoodley, Fulford and Moortown

The Yorkshire Am Am Golf Series, a fourball betterball competition, will get underway at Fulford on Wednesday, May 9, move on to Moortown the following day and then culminate at Alwoodley on Friday, May 11.

The organisers have imposed a limit of 18 teams, with tee-off times available from 9am to midday on each of the days, and have secured the backing of sporting goods company Callaway, who have provided prizes for the three teams with the best aggregate points score at the end of the three rounds.

Peter Rishworth, Moortown’s secretary/manager, said: “We have always had strong bonds with Alwoodley over the road and we have been working together to promote golf in Leeds.

“We have done a few things together. At the moment we are doing Sunday night packages where people play at each course and stay at the Weetwood Hall hotel on the Sunday night.

“We have been trying to look at ways to work together more on a local basis to get golfers into the Leeds area and it just spiralled because I know Gary Pearce [Fulford’s general manager] very well, and Fulford being probably the next highest ranking golf club in Yorkshire in close proximity, we are trying to do something perhaps more local than other events that we do.”

Moortown make up one corner of the hugely successful triangular Yorkshire Challenge event, held in September over Yorkshire’s three Ryder Cup courses, the others, of course, being Ganton and Lindrick.

The Yorkshire Am Am differs in that it has a smaller field as well as the courses being closer together.

“People will be able to stay somewhere in either Leeds or York and travel to all three courses in the Yorkshire Am AM Golf Series without too much disruption,” continued Rishworth.

“We didn’t want it to become a massive event. We are quite happy for it to be more a prestigious event and we’ve got a really good sponsor in Callaway and they have put up some excellent prizes.

“The event benefits from keeping it compact – it gives the competitors more chances to win prizes, it allows us to give more to each competitor, and it doesn’t impact greatly on the members of the club as well.”

The Yorkshire Am Am Golf Series will be one bookend of a hectic month for Alwoodley secretary/manager Julie Slater, the other as May draws to a close being a fact-finding trip to the Brabazon Trophy at Frilford Heath.

Alwoodley will stage the event, the English stroke play championship, next year and Slater will be assessing the logistics involved.

Before then she is looking forward to Alwoodley being the stage for the finale of the inaugural Yorkshire Am Am Golf Series.

“We have been looking at ways to attract golfers to stay and play in this area who just want to do a mini tour, to play social golf, and we have had a good take-up with that,” said Slater, “but we also wanted to do something for golfers who are looking for a challenge.

“So the difference is that players will be able to test themselves off the white tees on three top courses – golfers who think ‘oh yes, I could do that’ while they’re watching the Open.”

Both Moortown and Alwoodley are used regularly by the R&A for regional qualifying for the Open Championship while Fulford has a rich history of playing host to European events.

Next week it will stage the R&A’s inaugural Girls’ Under-16s Open Championship.

For information on how to enter the Yorkshire Am Am Golf Series 2018 go to www.moortown-gc.co.uk/yorkshireamamgolfseries.