Churston Golf Club Pro-Am Friday 19th October 2007 Individual Professional Scores 66 Barry Austin 68 Robin Goodey 69 Jon Langmead 69 Chris Gill 69 Stuart Barratt 69 Peter Mitchell 70 Nick Williams 71 Paul Hendriksen 72 Dan Wood 72 Cliff Strange Team Event -13 Stuart Barratt -13 Barry Austin -12 Lester Barnes -12 Duncan Arnold

Winning Pro - Barry Austin Stewart Barrett (left) & team trophy

The Devon Pro's played their final Pro Am event of the season last Friday at the superbly presented Churston Golf Club. The long running Pro Am has become for the first year part of the Devon county PGA schedule and attracted entries form throughout Devon of 37 teams.

The golf course was in remarkable condition this late in the season and many of the professionals felt that the greens which were running at 10.5 on the stimp metre, were some of the best they'd played all year.

Winning professional score on the day was Downes Crediton's Barry Austin. Barry, over the last few months has really hit top form and his score of 66 could, and perhaps should have been several shots better. He started in blistering form opening with three birdies, a two iron on the first to twelve feet was followed by superb iron approaches to set up birdies on 2 and 3, he then birdied the fifth to be four under after five. Thoughts of a sub sixty round crossed his mind and a three and a half footer for birdie on the seventh beckoned. Unfortunately, the ball lipped out and Barry lost a little bit of momentum. He bogeyed the short eighth after getting out of position with his eight iron tee shot, parred nine and ten then fired two more superb birdies on 11 and 12 to be five under par again. He then failed to capitalise on the two downwind birdie opportunities on 13 and 14. Inexplicably he hit possibly his only bad shot of the day a destructive drive which finished 50 yards right of the fairway and led to a triple bogey 7. Even this setback didn't stop Barry birdying holes 16 and 18 eventually signing for a 4 under par 66.

Barry commented "Churston is one of my favourite courses in Devon and I have won the Pro Am here on two occasions before. The course set up is normally tough with fast sloping greens and tough pin placements and the course seems to set up well for my game. He added, it really should have been a very low round I just went to sleep on the 15th tee.

In second place was Robin Goodey who has just run into some of his best form. He is swinging the club with a much better rhythm and has regained his self belief.
It was also good to see several of the younger Devon Pro's figuring among the leading scores.

The increased playing opportunities throughout the county this year seem to have encouraged more assistants to compete more regularly with the experienced senior professionals. Notably, Stewart Barratt from Dartmouth who also brought home the winning team, Peter Mitchell from Thurlestone and Dan Wood from Royal North Devon. Devon PGA vice captain Iain Parker said "its great to see some of the younger guys shooting good scores and finishing in the prizes. This can only be good for the future of Devon Pro golf."

Parker thanked everybody at Churston particularly Head Pro at Churston Rob Butterworth and his team for organising a superb event. He also thanked club secretary Simon Bawden for his efforts, and he looked forward to returning next year.