Yorkshire golf: Hornsea's Joe Palmer and Leigh Gawley both enjoy silver linings ahead of playing 150 holes in a day

Hornsea's Joe Palmer pictured during practice for playing 150 holes in a day with club-mate Leigh Gawley.Hornsea's Joe Palmer pictured during practice for playing 150 holes in a day with club-mate Leigh Gawley.
Hornsea's Joe Palmer pictured during practice for playing 150 holes in a day with club-mate Leigh Gawley.
HORNSEA'S Joe Palmer has received a big boost ahead of attempting to play 150 holes in a day alongside club-mate and East Riding match play champion Leigh Gawley.

For Palmer, like Gawley, has got his hands on some silverware following victory in Hornsea's First Division Open competition, in which he shot 79 off 11 for a net 68.

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"I very rarely win stuff and even when I did used to be competitive, I often came second or third - always the bridesmaid, but never the bride," says Palmer. "It was a bit of a shock."

Not as much as a shock as the news the pair imparted to their wives last year after successfully playing 100 holes in a day.

Hornsea's Leigh Gawley is the East Riding match play champion.Hornsea's Leigh Gawley is the East Riding match play champion.
Hornsea's Leigh Gawley is the East Riding match play champion.

Palmer and Gawley told their respective wives, Rachel and Jayne, that this year they would attempt 150 holes - that is eight and one third rounds - to raise funds for CRY, a charity which works to reduce the frequency of young sudden cardiac death, and their reaction to the magnitude of the task has since been echoed by everyone who has heard the news.

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If you wish to make a donation please click here"Both our wives think we are crazy," reveals Palmer. "In fact most people's reaction is, 'you're absolutely mad', ' you'll never do it', 'you played 100 last year and you looked like you were in bits', but people have also been very supportive as well.

"I think our wives maybe get a little frustrated with us sneaking off for a round of golf at seven on a Sunday night, but they knows it's for a good cause."

Many a club golfer has savoured the delights of a Sunday evening stroll around the course, but there is no time for Palmer and Gawley to follow golfing great Walter Hagen's advice to "be sure to smell the flowers along the way".

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Hornsea's Leigh Gawley is the East Riding match play champion.Hornsea's Leigh Gawley is the East Riding match play champion.
Hornsea's Leigh Gawley is the East Riding match play champion.

"We have been playing speed golf, well, not true speed golf - we haven't been running between shots - but we have been playing either 18 holes or 36 holes on a Sunday evening for the last few weeks just to see if we can get around in two hours," continues Palmer. "We have been getting around in an hour and three quarters each time.

"But there is a big difference between doing it twice and doing it eight times on the day."

Palmer and Gawley will undertake the marathon in memory of Hornsea schoolboy Josh Fell, who collapsed and died in 2011 from a previously undiagnosed heart condition.

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Josh's father, Richard, has campaigned tirelessly for the last five years to help provide heart screening for the young and has helped raise over £100,000.

The Hornsea club-mates recently completed the Beverly 20, a walk between Beverley Minster and the Humber Bridge that passes through the villages of Skidby and North Ferriby.

"That was really hard because you are not walking on nicely manicured fairways, you are walking on stony paths and my feet were pretty blistered at the end of that," recalls Palmer.

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"It is quite a scary thing to think we will be walking twice the distance (an estimated 45 miles) on the day."

Last year, along with a third member, Chris Wilson - who opted in to the event to mark his 50th birthday - they raised over £3,000 for Dove House Hospice and Barnardo's.

This year they have chosen CRY as it is Hornsea 2016 men's and ladies captain's chosen charity.