THE heat will be on at full-force at Fulford Golf Club tomorrow.

That's when the battle for the York Amateur Championship swings into all-out action with no fewer than five former champions in the field for York Union of Golf Clubs' showpiece amateur bauble.

The last three-ball out features last season's champion Stewart Parkin, the 2004 winner Martin Brown of Pike Hills and York GC's Lee Grant, the one-time York City player.

It will be an intriguing battle particularly involving the duel between Parkin and Brown. While all three are regular members of the York Union inter-county team, it was Parkin who won the crown last year after leader Brown was disqualified for an incorrect entry on his scorecard.

That gaffe denied Brown a second amateur title to go with the one he first seized three years ago when he captured an unparalleled trio of amateur, open and match-play titles on the York circuit.

Brown will be even more determined to get his name on the amateur trophy a second time, while that ambition will be matched as fiercely by Parkin, who was the youngest winner last year since current European Tour ace Simon Dyson when he lifted the amateur pot in 1994.

But the contest will not be a two-way affair. York GC's Dave Holder, winner in the year 2000, is in the field as are a brace of two-time champions, each seeking a hat-trick of ace amateur accolades.

Jamie Miller, the man who has returned to the amateur ranks after a brief spell as a professional, lifted the title first in 1991 and then a decade ago, while his fellow Fulford GC club-mate Matthew Kelly won successive amateur crowns in 2002 and 2003.

Fulford will also be the venue for the Seward Trophy, which is run in conjunction with the York Amateur, though for junior players and those of handicaps above 18.

And that could reel in a double as promising Heworth GC teenager Jim Batt junior is in the field while his dad, the York Union county captain of the same name, will likely be in the running for the amateur crown.

The Seward Trophy was won last year by Kirkbymoorside's Jonathan Moss.

ONE of North Yorkshire's most promising players strengthened his claims to make Great Britain's prestigious Walker Cup team.

Harrogate GC's John Parry showed eminent cool in prevailing in a sudden-death play-off against England team-mate Paul Waring to land the Welsh Open stroke-play title.

It was Knaresborough-based Parry's third national crown after earlier this year winning the Spanish title to add to his first success of two years ago when he won the Danish Amateur championship.

Parry, aged 19, and Waring tied on 277 at the Machynys Peninsula complex to take them into a play-off.

The title was decided at the first opportunity when, on the par-four 16th Parry holed from ten foot for par, but Waring, failed to get up and down in two after a poor approach.

Allerthorpe Park GC beat visitors Hornsea A' 3-1 in the East Riding Union Scratch League. Rob Bradley, Ian White and Simon Thompson all won, while the ladies team posted a resounding 6- win over Scarborough North Cliff in the Yorkshire League.