English Amateur Championship delight for Sussex player
Sussex’s Joe Sullivan rediscovered his top form just at the right time to claim the English Amateur Championship at Lindrick last night.
FORMAT: 36-hole stroke play qualifier / 6 rounds of matchplay
A summer of swing changes have led to some ups but mostly downs for the Royal Ashdown Forest player and only last week he missed the cut at the Walton Heath Trophy.
However it all clicked in South Yorkshire this week as he saw off local favourite George Ash (Hallowes) 3&1 in a final he was up in for most of the day.
Along the way he took out England’s Arron Edwards-Hill (Chelmsford) 2&1 having qualified for the knockout stages in 26th.
“To win this at the end of a long week, I’m really ecstatic,” he told EnglandGolf.
“It’s been missed cut after missed cut and then finally this week I got the swing back in shape and I’m really happy to win.”
Sullivan’s super-six matchplay wins:
• Round 1: Jake Walley 6&5
• Round 2: Carl Banner 2&1
• Round 3: Arron Edwards-Hill 2&1
• Quarters: Luke Poulter 5&3
• Semis: Matt Gauntlett 4&3
• Final: George Ash 3&1
Sullivan, who will shortly head back to Florida to continue his golf scholarship at Jacksonville University, has struggled for most of the Summer in major events. At the British Amateur he was six shots away from the cut mark and at the St Andrews Links Trophy again failed to make the final day.
However there have been some strong performances, notably at the South East Counties Men’s qualifier where he was the leading individual as Sussex finished behind champions Surrey.
And it was that kind of form that he took into the matchplay as he started strongly in the first round against Enville’s Jake Walley – he was three under for 13 holes – and continued that through the week. Against Edwards-Hill he was six under for 17 holes.
The scoring was not quite so hot in the final and a bogey at the first from Sullivan gave the Yorkshireman a one-hole advantage he kept until the sixth where the soon-to-be-champion birdied the par three.
At the tenth the Royal Ashdown Forest player went ahead and thereafter was never headed.
By the 28th hole he led by four but Ash did win three holes in a row to cut the cap to one with five holes to go.
However Sullivan won the 14th (32nd) and also closed things out in superb fashion with a birdie at 17.