Our flagship County Championship events were played over 4 consecutive days last week, Thursday 29th May through to Sunday 1st June, at Berkhamsted Golf Club, the first time the Mens Championship has been played there since 2007 and the Womens since 2012.
The event started on bright and early on Thursday 29th May with the Mens Strokeplay qualifying, with a full compliment of 66 players in a 36 hole medal strokeplay event, with the top 16 gross scores qualifying through to the weekend KO rounds. The conditions were decidedly gusty and blustery on the day, making shot selection awkward. particuarly on many of the gorse and bracken lined fairways. The course was presented beautifully and the greens in particuar were stunning, with a good quick pace and exceptionally true. The rain in the build up to the event just took some of the fire out of the course, but the fairways still played firm, fast and running, with the occasional ‘Berkhamsted’ bounce off the various ripples and undulations of which the course is famous for.
The strokeplay qualifier was won by Laurie Owen of Harpenden Common, who stormed through the field with an excellent pm round of 67 -4. Defending Champion Harry Cox of Welwyn Garden City led after the morning round with his own 67 -4, but faded slighly in the pm round to take the #2 seed spot. The qualifying mark for the last 16 KO rounds was on 152 +10, with a playoff required to resolve, after 4 had tied on that score for the 1 remaining spot and the right to play the #1 seed Laurie on the Saturday morning. The playoff took 2 holes to resolve and was won by Jason Mitchell of Porters Park with a birdie 3 on the par 4 9th hole, after 3 of the 4 players had made a par 4 on the 1st sudden death hole, the 10th.
Noticably more benign conditions followed on Friday 30th May, which saw the turn of the Women with their 36 hole strokeplay qualifier. Only difference here saw only the top 8 gross scores progress to the weekend KO rounds. The event was also combined for the 1st time with the County Womens Seniors Championship event, with players competing in both events, if eligible, utilising their round 1 morning score from the Womens Championship as their counting score for the Seniors Championship event. Jackie Foster of Bishops Stortford returned an excellent score of 72 -1 to take the lead after Round 1, and would ultimately comfortably win the Seniors Championship with that score, but like Harry the day before would fade in the afternoon round to take #2 seed, with Mawgan Vater of Porters Park taking the #1 seed and the Scratch Aggregate Cup with a gross score of 152 +6 by 1 from the aforementioned Jackie. The Anne Pyke Trophy for the best Nett Score was won by Breda Franzmann of Hadley Wood with an excellent nett score of 138 -8, with a superb morning nett 66 doing most of the damage. In the Womens Champion Club event, the Bishops Stortford team of Jackie Foster, Haley Yerxa and Harriet Buchan took the team prize with a best 2 from 3 format score of 307 for the day, +15, from the Essendon team in 2nd. Bishops Stortford now progress to represent Hertfordshire at the England Golf Womens Champion Club event, to be played at the City of Newcastle Golf Club later in the year. The qualifying mark for the weekend KO rounds was on 159 +13 with exactly 8 players on that score or better and no play off required.
The weekend KO rounds started on Saturday am with the Mens Round of 16, and then the Women re-joined the event on the Saturday afternoon, with all the quarter final match ups played. Saturday morning saw a shock of sorts when defending Champion and #2 seed Harry Cox was knocked out, albeit by a past County Champion and a great player in his own right, Joss Gosling of Harpenden, on the 20th hole. The pm Quarter Final match ups saw Laurie Owen take out club mate and another former County Champion Tony Wilkins with some more sparkling golf to win the match 4&3. Adam Berg-Capin of Sandy Lodge took out the aforementioned Joss 2 up, inspired by some great putting and holing out.
The Sunday morning saw the Semi Final match ups, with Laurie Owen taking on County teammate Connor O’Brien of Brocket Hall and Adam Berg-Capin playing Tom Turner of Harpenden Common. In the Womens event, #1 seed Mawgan Vater took on Zainab Jeppe of Brocket Hall, who lost in the County Championship final in 2020, and Jackie Foster play Janine Cicchirillo of Essendon, who had exceeded all expectations to get this far with some very steady and consistent golf. Laurie would win his semi match the hard way, holing a clutch putt on the last green to take the match to extra holes and winning on the 19th. Meanwhile more inspired scrambling and putting from Adam saw him win his match against Tom Turner by the margin of 3&2. In the Womens semis, the match between Mawgan and Zainab turned into an epic battle with a 3 putt on the last green from Mawgan taking the match to extra holes which eventually Zainab would claim on the 3rd extra hole. In the other match Janine performed admirably and was level until after the turn, but eventually succumbed to Jackie by the margin of 3&2.
The final matches were played in great spirit and were watched by growing throng of spectators as the day progressed. The Womens final ended up being somewhat of a precession with Zainab reversing the result of the 2020 final and defeating Jackie 5&4, who by this time was very understandbly tiring somewhat. The Mens final looked to be going the same way, particularly when Laurie holed a long putt across the green on the 14th for a birdie 2 to go 4 up with 4 holes to play. However a bogey from Laurie on the 15th and a birdie 4 from Adam on the 16th made things noticeably more tense. Eventually a confidently struck 4 foot par putt on the 17th green gave Laurie the title, winning the match by the margin of 2&1.
Both Zainab & Laurie gave great acceptance speeches at the prizegiving and were very worthy and deserved champions. Both will now progress to represent Hertfordshire at the England Golf Champion of Champions events, played at Woodhall Spa in September.
Our thanks to our hosts Berkhamsted in permitting us to play the Championships on their great course and to their staff in their considerable efforts to ensure the smooth running of the event. The 2026 Championships will be held at Ashridge Golf Club.
