From the Fitzpatricks to Whaley, Dean and Heath - Yorkshire golf has never been stronger

The light was fading and the course emptying as people began filtering out of the exits of the Southport links, just a few hardy souls from Hallowes Golf Club left shouting encouragement towards their man Bairstow, who was making his third appearance at the game’s oldest major.

A New Zealander in Ryan Fox would eventually go on to lift the Claret Jug three days later but it was an Open in which Yorkshire as a region showed its strength in depth.

For Bairstow was one of SEVEN Yorkshire players in the field that week. To put that number into context, there were only two from Scotland, the home of golf, and not one from Wales for a third year in a row. Bairstow was joined by Matt Fitzpatrick, Alex Fitzpatrick, John Parry, Dan Brown, Dan Bradbury and Joe Dean, who was last man into the field after winning the Last Chance Qualifier over 18 holes on the Monday.

That Magnificent Seven are at the sharp end of what has been a monumental year for golfers representing the White Rose, with wins and achievements coming thick and fast throughout 2026, in both the men’s and women’s games, amateur and professional ranks, and across the globe.

So let’s take a look at some of the highlights.

For sheer consistency and body of work, Matt Fitzpatrick has to be Yorkshire’s golfer of the year.

There was no major title as there was in 2022 when he won the US Open at Brookline, but after routinely winning one tournament a year, he exploded in 2026 with four wins, three on the PGA Tour in the space of six weeks.

The 32-year-old from Sheffield had gone close at the Players Championship before ripping off a formidable streak with wins at the Valspar Championship, the RBC Heritage where he beat world No 1 Scottie Scheffler in a play-off, and then the Zurich Classic of New Orleans.

Despite never hitting those heights in the majors, he came back to the DP World Tour in the autumn to win the FedEx Open de France in September.

The third of those victories was a special one, coming as it did alongside his brother Alex Fitzpatrick in the pairs event in New Orleans in late April.

That was a huge moment for the younger brother, who only a month earlier had finally got his first win on the DP World Tour at the Hero Indian Open.

Alex had been knocking on the door for a few months, he took the confidence from India into a rare start on the PGA Tour in New Orleans, and with the ever-dependable Matt alongside him, victory earned him a two-year exemption on the top circuit. He backed it up with six further top-10 finishes.

Those victories are not in isolation though, and arguably the biggest win of the year came as a bit of a bolt out of the blue.

Nobody was talking about Doncaster’s Jack Whaley, who plays out of Rotherham Golf Club, when the 22-year-old teed it up at the prestigious US Amateur Championship at Merion in late August.

The Florida State golfer was just one of the 128 hopefuls in the field when the strokeplay rounds began, and he barely scraped into the top-64 for the matchplay. But from there a young man whose matchplay prowess was honed playing for Rotherham in the Sheffield Union and Yorkshire in the County Championship, accelerated through the rounds until he came from two holes down in the final to defeat American favourite Jay Leng Jnr.

The history of English golfers in the event underlines the magnitude of the achievement. Whaley was only the third Englishman to win the US Amateur in over a century. The last, Matt Fitzpatrick 13 years earlier. Two weeks later Whaley helped Great Britain and Ireland win the Walker Cup, recording the second-largest margin of victory in the event’s history.

Whaley’s was not the only big amateur win by a Yorkshire golfer this year.

Tom Osborne who plays out of Lindrick and is a regular in the county team, set the healthland at Moortown ablaze with a blistering opening round to begin the Brabazon Trophy in May.

Osborne posted a course-record equalling 62 to open up a three-shot lead that he would never relinquish. A year in which he also won the Spanish Amateur Championship ends with Osborne turning professional and embarking on the MENA Tour as his first step on the ladder.

Meanwhile, the Yorkshire team Osborne so often represented capped another dominant year and proved the pipeline of talent remains as strong as ever by winning the English Boys County Championships for a record 11th time.

Just a month before Whaley represented GB&I in the Walker Cup, Lily Hirst of Huddersfield earned that distinction in the women’s Curtis Cup.

Hirst, who like Whaley furthered her golfing education via a golf scholarship in America, won the Comboy Leveret Trophy in March as part of an impressive body of work.

At the Curtis Cup in Los Angeles in June, she was unable to stem the American tide in a heavy defeat.

Huddersfield Golf Club also produced a winner in the women’s professional game this year in Charlotte Heath.

In her first season on the Ladies European Tour the two-time Curtis Cup player claimed her first victory at the level when triumphing at the La Sella Open in Alicante in September. She showed great resilience, bouncing back after squandering a four-shot lead to prevail by two shots.

In the men’s game, Wakefield’s Dan Bradbury and Sheffield’s Joe Dean are currently out in Dubai, putting a little lucrative gloss on their tournament-winning DP World Tour campaigns at the circuit’s tour championships.

Bradbury continued his love affair with the Joburg Open at Houghton Golf Club by winning the tournament for the second time in four seasons. Where on his DP World Tour debut back in November 2022 he was a wire-to-wire winner, in March he wasn’t even in contention as he reached the turn on the final round before being presented with a chance and seizing it.

And Dean finally got his breakthrough win in August when he held off a stellar field to win the British Masters.

Both players headed into the weekend in Dubai still harbouring hopes of clinching one of the PGA Tour cards available to the 10 highest placed players on the Race to Dubai rankings not already exempt - following in the footsteps of two Yorkshire’s John Parry and Dan Brown last year.

What a fitting end to Yorkshire’s golfing year that would be.