Alan Mew made it a record five Hampshire Seniors titles at the ripe old age of 72 – and he managed to beat his age with his second round score to complete a four-shot victory over Stoneham clubmate Richard Elmes, writes Andrew Griffin.
Both men have captained Hampshire in the last 15 years, while Mew also went on to captain the English Seniors team, having qualified to play on the European Seniors Tour back in 2003.
Mew carded a fine level-par 70 in the second round at Brokenhurst Manor, to overhaul his rival Elmes, who was looking to join the club of 10 players who have won at least two Hampshire Senior titles since the competition began in 1978.
Hampshire Golf records indicate that Mew also became the oldest winner of the championship in its 48-year history.
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Having made three birdies in his first round, Mew was two behind Elmes, who claimed the Hampshire, Isle of Wight and Channel Islands Amateur Championship in 2002.
Mew, winner of the Sloane-Stanley Challenge Cup himself on two occasions in the 1990s, got to the turn in one-under par in the second round, while Elmes dropped shots at the seventh and ninth.
The three-shot swing left Mew in front by one and on course to add to the Senior titles he won in 2012, 2014, 2015 and 2020.
But the 2019 Irish Seniors Amateur Champion made bogeys at the 10th and 11th which were matched by Elmes to leave Mew still with a one-shot lead.
Elmes dropped another shot at the 13th but clawed it back on the short par-four 14th, to remain in the hunt for a second win after his triumph in 2017.
A crucial birdie-four at the 16th doubled Mew’s lead but the decisive blow came when Elmes made a double-bogey six at the tough 17th, leaving a par for Mew to card a two-over total.
Mew – who claimed his first Over 55s title in 2012 when aged 59 after regaining his amateur status for a second time having also played on the European Tour after moving to the UK from Trinidad and Tobago where he was raise – had shown how exemplary his iron play still is by making two twos at the par-three third and fifth holes in the first round.
Royal Winchester’s Andy Litton was three shots back in third after rounds of 76 and 73, while Andy Bow – another former Hampshire captain from Stoneham, who took the county to the English County Finals in 2007 and 2008 – was in fifth on 11-over.
Brokenhurst’s Idris Vernall had taken fourth on countback, and cleaned up in the handicap competition, shooting nett rounds of 67 and 66 to cheer the home crowd, comfortably better than his own age.
That was six better than Hartley Witney’s Adam Bushell and left the eight-handicapper in second place behind Mew in the over 70s category.
Litton took the 55-59 honours, while Elmes beat Bow (73, 78) in the 60-64s by five shots while Test Valley’s county player David Price took top spot in the 65-69 on countback, edging out Basingstoke’s 2022 champion Oscar O’Herlihy after they both carded 12-over.
Mew and Elmes are just two of five players to have won both the county’s men’s and senior’s crowns in their amateur career.
The 1982 winner – Hartley Wintney’s Stan Fox had claimed the Brabazon Trophy at the English Amateur Strokeplay Championship in 1956, while David Harrison (1993 and 1994) holds the record of six Sloane-Stanley cup wins in the men’s championship, as well as seven Courage Trophies in the county strokeplay championship.
The other was former English Amateur Champion Kevin Weeks, who won his only seniors title on his home course at Brokenhurst in 2013 – 30 years after the second of his two county championship victories, which also came in the New Forest.
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