Gales Batter Hesketh Qualifiers
Published: 11 May 2009
Glenmuir PGA Professional Championship Results Release
Gales blowing at 40 miles an hour along the Southport coast derailed most of the 71-strong field of battling professionals at Hesketh in the qualifying round of the flagship event for Britain and Ireland’s top club professionals.
And the scorecards of Wigan’s Craig Corrigan, Barry Taylor from Houghwood, St Helens, and Richmond’s (North Yorkshire) James Cousins, adding up to a five-over 76, proved to be the best of the day in the north-west test for the Glenmuir PGA Professional Championship.
“It was an absolute nightmare”, said Corrigan, the 40-year-old Haigh Hall pro. “I had a card of one birdie and six bogeys, and just avoided the worst of the disasters out there. To give you an example of how severe the wind was – at the 346-yard 10th I had to use a five-iron into the teeth of the gale to cover just 130 yards to the green, and that was probably my finest shot of the day. The ball landed 10 feet away...and no, I didn’t hole the putt!”
Club selection for everyone proved the biggest headache of a day where play began just before 8am and ended almost 10 hours later. Downwind at the 382-yard opening hole, Corrigan hit in a gap wedge for his second shot to 25 feet – and did hole that one for his solitary birdie of the round.
“I dropped shots at 11 and 12, and that’s where I thought the round was beginning to run away from me. Two more bogeys came (at 14 and 16), and by the time I came off the course, I was just glad to get finished. I knew 76 would qualify for the final, but didn’t imagine I’d finish top.”
The mad-keen Wigan fan (“we just seemed doomed to be a feeder club for more fashionable Premiership sides”, he complained) is now enthusing about the Glenmuir 72-hole final, being played from June 16-19 at Dundonald Links, near Troon. Like so many English players, he hasn’t played the course.
“But I’ve heard a lot of great reports about it. It must be good to have held a European Tour school qualifying round last year.”
Taylor has been more intent in recent years on playing rather than taking a pro’s club job (he won last year’s Tamsel Tour and the Players’ Tour Order of Merits) but he showed that committing to the latter hasn’t dimmed his playing ability.
“I didn’t start too cleverly – five bogeys in the first six holes – but a birdie and a bogey on the back nine, finishing with a 20-footer for par on the last, chirped me up, especially in these dire conditions.”
Cousins was anxious to give credit to his dad Teri, the pro at Silverdale near Carnforth. “He’s looked after my swing for a long time”, said the 32-year-old. “But out there it was more damage limitation than anything else. You just had to try and keep the ball in play, because the rough was pretty penal.”
Cousins, out in 40, five over, played a master shot at the 174-yard 16th, hitting a No 2 rescue wood to 25 feet and holing for a rare birdie. He’d made his only other gain of the round, at the par-five 13th.
Tied for fourth place, on 77, came former European Tour winner, Paul Eales, now known as much for his radio broadcasting as wielding his clubs, and the North Region’s 2003 Order of Merit winner, Jonathan Cheetham. The Gatley pro had an even more graphic tale of misjudging the Hesketh wind.
“I had 156 yards left on the long seventh, hit a four-iron out of my boots – and it died 126 yards later. Mind you, in a perverse sort of way, because it was so windy, the round was almost enjoyable.”
