Cheshire Stroke Play procession for Royal Liverpool player after brilliant first round
Matty Dodd-Berry’s golden run continued at Heswall on Saturday when he picked up the Cheshire Stroke Play Championship on the back of a superb front-running display.
FORMAT: 72-hole stroke play
The Royal Liverpool player starts his collegiate career at East Tennessee State University at the end of this month and fair few players in the North West will be quietly pleased about that after he gave another brilliant demonstration of how to thrive in tough links conditions.
The 18-year-old won by nine shots just a week after his second golfnews24 Northern Order of Merit victory in quick succession – The Bromborough Bowl. That came after he also picked up the Frank Stableford Trophy at Wallasey at the end of May.
His final event, before heading across the Atlantic, is this week’s 72-hole Cheshire Cat, which is jointly held at Stockport (Stockport Salver on Thursday, July 14th) and Wilmslow (Wilmslow Crow on Friday, July 15th).
But he will be hard pushed to better his first round effort at Heswall when, despite rock-hard fairways and constant 25mph winds, he shot a 67 (-5), the lowest score at the Wirral venue for 12 years.
The next best on the opening day was a 72 by Cheshire captain Jon Beesley although Dodd-Berry didn’t fully appreciate just how well he had done in the immediate aftermath.
He said: “I didn’t realise at the time just how good it was. It was certainly some of the best golf I have ever played, especially the way I was able to control the ball in the wind.
“There were people NR-ing after six holes and when I came in a few people did come up to me and say they couldn’t quite believe I shot that score in those conditions.”
After bogeying three and five to drop back to level par, the teenager went bogey free and produced some exceptional stuff, including holing out from 40 feet at the tenth to get to three under.
He also, critically, managed to keep his ball on the fairways on the downwind holes, typified by his birdie at the 483-yard 15th, where he had just 70 yards in for his approach shot and knocked it to eight feet before holing out.
Dodd-Berry added: “It was fully burnt out and the fairways were rock hard. If you were playing out of the rough you just couldn’t hold the greens so you had to be in the fairways to be in with a chance of hitting it close.”
On day two he put in another impressive, controlled display as he started to focus on ‘par golf’ to keep the field at bay.
And he would reach halfway seven clear after racking up 17 pars and one birdie (the ninth) in his second round.
With 36 holes on the final day it did tighten up in the morning as he shot a 73 and Stockport’s Luke Yardley got within four thanks to his second-successive 70.
“In that third round I really didn’t do anything wrong,” added the champion. “It was just the putts didn’t drop.”
However Yardley got off to a poor start in the final round while the leader was his usual-uber solid self, even managing to birdie the 608-yard par five fifth, which had been playing into the wind and causing the field all manner of problems.
Competition organisers moved the tee up 60 yards for the fourth round and Dodd-Berry took advantage, hitting driver, four iron and then nine iron to 15 feet before rolling it in for the rarest of birdies.
Only one player broke par in the final round – Sandbach’s Ben Brookes – so par golf was certainly going to get it done for the leader and he got back to level for his round at 17, where two more excellent woods took him to the fringe of the 564-yard par five. A chip and a putt saw him return to five under for the tournament while a 74 from Sandiway’s Tom Duncalf was enough to secure him the runners-up spot ahead of Yardley and Astbury’s Sam Johnson.
It would also be a special day for the new champion’s family as dad Kenny, mum Sally, brother Joseph and his grandparents Geoff and Ann Dodd followed him round for the final 36 holes.