Pike Hills Golf Club's power underpinned by homegrown swing to youth

8:00am Saturday 4th September 2010

By Tony Kelly

PIKE Hills Golf Club have scaled unparalleled heights as homegrown talent rose to the fore.

The club are currently celebrating winning the Yorkshire first division championship for the first time in their history.

The initial reward for the team of Martin Brown, Craig Smith, Adrian Lount, and Alistair Smith, supplemented by James Hudson and Rob Hamilton, was to hoist aloft the Ilkley Championship Bowl, first competed for in 1891.

But there was even more treasure to come, the upshot of their emphatic triumph as Yorkshire champions at Malton & Norton GC was to earn the right to represent the county in the England Championships in Sussex next week.

Team captain Russ Chilton, who just two weeks ago scored a magnificent individual trophy double, declared himself “flabbergasted” by the prized Pike Hills success.

“I was left almost speechless,” said Chilton, who a mainstay of the team for the last 15 years.

“To see a little club like Pike Hills – and compared to some of the bigger names on that trophy – win the Yorkshire first division championship was incredible.

“About six years ago we had a little dream then of winning. We had a chance, but it never came off.

“Now Pike Hills are going to represent the whole of Yorkshire in the England finals. It’s a fantastic accolade.”

Winner of the Eden Trophy medal competition at the St Andrews home of golf, where he hit his best ever round of golf in 30 years of playing, and then the victor in the prestigious Leeds Amateur Trophy just five days later, Chilton said that brace paled beside Pike Hills’ feat.

“While I was delighted by those successes, they are nowt compared to this. It’s an historic moment for the club, one of which we are all proud of at the club,” said Chilton, who added that his charges had performed so well through the season he had not seen the need to play himself.

“The best thing about it is that three of the team – Martin Brown, Adrian Lount and Craig Smith – have come through the youth ranks at the club. They came here at the age of 13 and have progressed all the way through.

“And a lot of the praise for that success is down to Colin Weir. It was he who truly started the youth policy here at Pike Hills and had it not been for his enthusiasm and input then we would not be where we are now.”

“The club is absolutely delighted. When you see some of the other names on that trophy for that to now be part of our club history is fantastic,” said Dunn.

“It all goes back to the junior section and it being formed 14 or 15 years ago by Colin Weir.

“There’s a great camaraderie about the team, a great bond. The club are just so proud of them.”

Now up for grabs for Pike Hills, who won the Yorkshire title by to shots from Hallowes GC, is the English crown next week.

And if they were to be crowned kings of England then that would put them into the European championships later this year.

The Oaks champion duo

HIGH winds at The Oaks GC were defied by Megan Garland and James Walker in the club championships.

Walker won the club crown beating Tony Raper in a four-hole play-off, while Garland lifted the ladies’ title.