18 hopefuls for Porthcawl date

From the Swindon Advertiser, first published Saturday 28th Jan 2006.

GOLF: WILTSHIRE women's skipper Sue Dix, from Kingsdown, has called up a group of 18 players to form the training and trialling squad from which the team of nine will be selected for the South Western Counties (Northern Division) Championship at Royal Porthcawl in May.

The squad comprises a balance of experience and youth, and includes five players from Ogbourne Downs and two each from Wrag Barn, Broome Manor and Marlborough.

The Ogbourne quintet are four-times Wiltshire women's champion Sue Sutton, Sue Newman, Roxanne Roberts, Nina Davies and Ann Ferguson.

Teenage club and county champion Carly Boulton and former county champion Gill Loughrey represent Wrag Barn, Kay Dickinson and Jo Rogers fly Broome Manor's banner and another young club champion, Emma Breen, and Karen Gosling represent Marlborough.

The other seven members of the squad are the Tidworth trio of former county captain Di Gritt, Sarah Waugh and South Western under 15s champion Hannah Turland, Claire Hobbs and Katie Dove Meadows (Cumberwell Park), Jo Jo Candy (Manor House, Castle Combe) and Jo Shorrocks (Hamptworth).

The four-county round robin South Western (Northern Division) championship will be played over the renowned Porthcawl links, where Swindon European Tour star David Howell sprang to prominence in 1995 as a member of the victorious British Walker Cup team, from May 10-12.

Wiltshire enjoyed their best campaign in the championship for several years during the first of Mrs Dix's two terms as captain at Wrag Barn last spring.

They won one of their three fixtures and tied another to finish third to Gloucestershire, Mrs Sutton taking the county's honours with 41/2 points out of five.

The squad will again be put through the mill by Cumberwell Park professional John Jacobs.

Jacobs a former Broome Manor assistant and highly-regarded teacher, is in his third year as county coach.

Said Mrs Dix: "Our training programme, which will be geared to playing on a links course, entails two short-game sessions, one this Saturday (today) and one at the end of February.

"This will be followed by a 36-hole foursomes trial at High Post on March 18 and a 27-hole singles trial at Cumberwell Park on March 26."

After the trials Mrs Dix will name the nine players for Porthcawl. They will have a weekend training session over the course early in April and warm up for the championship with three friendlies against High Post men on April 8, Dorset on April 20 and Somerset on April 27.

Mrs Dix, a member of the Kingsdown club for some 25 years said: "The links course will certainly be a challenge, but by the time May arrives we will be confident and relish the opportunity to improve on last year's result."

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