UNDER 18 SQUAD HEAD FOR WARM WEATHER TRAINING IN SPAIN - 7th Mar 2005

As part of England’s progressive training programme for the country’s best young golfers, the EGU are, for the first time, taking the entire under 18 Boys Squad to Spain for Warm Weather Training. The trip will give players a concentrated period on consistently good greens and fairways and provide the England team with a kick-start to the season’s matches and tournaments.

All 16 players, the cream of the country’s young talent, will attend the Training Camp at Sotogrande in Andalusia from 13th – 18th March. They will be accompanied by coaches Paul Ashwell, Graham Walker and Stephen Rolley and physiotherapist Lynn Booth along with two further EGU development staff.

The Camp will be based at the Almenara Golf Academy where coaching will be held while the squad will play over the Almenara and La Reserva courses. Apart from regular coaching sessions, the players will take part in skill challenges and fitness regimes during the six-day stay as well as playing either nine or eighteen holes of golf each day. There will also be evening reviews of each day’s activities.

The squad contains several players capped at under 16 level as well as some boy caps. These include 16 year old Oliver Fisher from Essex, the current holder of the McGregor and Lagonda Trophies and a member of the 2005 Walker Cup squad.

Also in the England party is Stephen Capper from Cheshire, who finished third in both the McEvoy Trophy and the Daily Telegraph Junior Championship last year, and Hertfordshire’s Thomas Haylock, third in last year’s Turkish Amateur.

Ben Parker, based in Germany, who won the European Young Masters in 2003 and helped England win the European Boys Team Championships and the Boys Home Internationals last year, is also travelling, as is Tom Oliver from Nottingham, who reached the last 16 of the 2004 English Amateur Championship.

Three members of the Yorkshire side that tied with Essex for the Boys County Championship last year, Matthew Evans, Adam Hodkinson and Dale Smith, are others in the party along with Lancashire’s Ian Winstanley, the 2001 England under 14 champion.

The full England party for Spain is:
Jake Amos (Birstall)
Adam Birdseye (Hazlemere)
Steven Capper (Caldy)
Matthew Evans (Rotherham)
Oliver Fisher (West Essex)
Thomas Haylock (The Hertfordshire)
Adam Hodkinson (Dore & Totley)
Sam Hutsby (Lee-on-Solent)
Tony Mitchell (Redbourn)
Tom Oliver (Radcliffe on Trent)
Ben Parker (Gut Waldhof)
Thomas Sherreard (Chart Hills)
Dale Smith (Saltburn)
James Watts (East Herts)
Daniel Willett (Bondhay)
Ian Winstanley (Formby)

Lynn Booth, Physiotherapist
Paul Ashwell, Junior Lead Coach
Graham Walker and Stephen Rolley, Regional Coaches
David Basham, EGU Chairman of Coaching
Dr Frank Harkins, EGU Junior Golf Representative

Related Links

• http://www.englishgolfunion.org

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