Highbullen Golf Club & Hotel Celebraty Pro-Am Sunday 23rd September 2007 Individual Professional Scores 68 Jon Langmead (Exminster) 69 Scott Amiet (Teign Valley) 69 Sean Mason (Teign Valley) 69 Cliff Strange (Torquay) 69 Tony Pitts (St.Austell) 70 Barry Austin (Downes Crediton) 70 Jason Fullard (Dainton Park) 70 Richard Sadler (Killiow) Team Winners Tony Pitts, Sally Ford, Dick Ford, David Jeffs, 90 pts

Winning Pro - Jon Langmead Alex Hay with Iain Parker

In a first for the Devon PGA, there was a new and fun event added this season, held at a brand new venue, High Bullen Golf Club and Hotel.

The Pro Am took the form of a Pro Celebrity Am, twenty Devon Pros played in the event alongside Olympic Gold medal winner Kriss Akabusi, golf's legendary commentator Alex Hay, boxing champion Nicky Piper and former rugby British Lion, Rob Henderson. The Celebrity players were drawn mainly from the world of sports and the Pros enjoyed mixing with some really top people from sports as diverse as Skiing, Ice Hockey, with Britain's Olympic Captain, Shannon Hope, and Power boating, with a former world champion.

The day was put together by Royal North Devon Head Pro, Iain Parker, and was part of the Sir Steve Redgrave Golden Five Tour. The day was filmed for SKY Television and will be broadcast sometime in late November as part of their ongoing coverage of these events.

The weekend was all about raising money for several charities and this was a huge success. £35,000 was pledged at Saturday's Charity Auction. Devon Golf Professionals can be very proud of the part they played in making the weekend's Golfing activities a great success.

The golf course, which very few of the Pros had played before, is tucked away in beautiful North Devon countryside. It is truly a 'Hidden Gem'. Owner Martin Neal has been reluctant to stage big events before, as he wanted to complete course improvements, and open two new holes. This has now all been put in place, and the course which had previously been regarded as a great and enjoyable hotel layout, is now a real challenge to even the best Pros in the County.

With a Par of 68 and a swirling breeze scoring was far from easy, with most Pros playing the course 'blind'. Par proved to be the winning score.

Exminster's Jon Langmead came out on top edging out four players on 69, Cliff Strange, Tony Pitts, Scott Amiet and Sean Mason.

Jon's aggressive and risk taking approach amazed playing partner Olympic Gold medal winner Kriss Akabusi, who said he had never seen anyone take on so many of the tight dog leg carries which the course presented. Jon's game is built around attacking golf and he hit several great shots. Probably not knowing the course cost him three dropped shots but defensive golf is just not his style!!

Scott Amiet who does not play much regular golf in the summer proved that he can mix it with the best of the county`s Pro's. He is director of golf at the busy Teign Valley Course and this takes up most of his time. He has helped several Devon Pro's move forward in their career's, his latest success being Sean Mason, now attached with Scott at Teign Valley. Sean who has just won the final West Region event of the season, securing the OOM title in the process also scored 69.

Story of the day though was Tony Pitts amazing turnaround, he suffered a huge setback with a quadruple bogey 9 on the par five ninth hole. Most players would have given up at this point, not Tony though, he proceeded to come home in an amazing 29 shots, which on the day was exceptional. He would dearly have loved to have had the chance of playing that disastrous ninth hole again.

Iain Parker Devon PGA Vice Captain thanked everyone involved in the staging of the event, and looked forward to returning to the beautiful course at Highbullen in the future, he commented that it was the perfect Pro Am venue and would make a great society course.