Former Hampshire first-team member Ryan Moody ensured the leading county amateurs’ success in the Hampshire Open over the last 25 years did not extend to an eighth winner this century, writes Andrew Griffin.
Moody, who is now the club pro at Waterlooville, held off a strong challenge from defending champion Rob Wheeler, from North Hants, to claim the Parkersell Trophy.
The tournament, in its 58th year, had been destined to head for Waterlooville before lunch after former Amateur Champion Scott Gregory, who grew up playing at his local club, had fired a superb 62.
That round – including seven birdies, an eagle and two bogeys – would have been a course record but preferred lies were being played after the course suffered some severe cracks in some fairways because of the prolonged dry spell.
Read more
The 30-year-old produced the kind of golf that saw him play in the 2017 Walker Cup, that year’s Augusta Masters and appear in the 2016 and two US Opens.
But after lunch, the superb short game that propelled him into a four-shot lead over Moody, could not save the player who played 29 times on the European Tour, and he dropped out of contention with a three-over-par 72.
Wheeler got within three shots after just seven holes of his second round, but last year’s Hampshire Order of Merit winner, who finished second in Regional Open Qualifying on his home course at Fleet a week earlier, ran out of steam, making two bogeys on his back nine.
That paved the way for Alresford’s Will Pakenham-Walsh to grab the runners’-up spot and take the County Salver as the leading amateur after returning his second 67 of the day to finish on four-under.
Gregory was tied in second with Pakenham-Walsh and Liphook’s James Ablett, the winner in 2022. Wheeler finished fifth, two shots back.
Moody, who won the Courage Trophy – Hampshire Golf’s strokeplay championship – in 2020, turned pro in 2022 and already has 16 victories under his belt after his win at Alresford.
The Hampshire Open is the second biggest win of Moody’s Hampshire PGA career following his win in the PGA Southern Open Championship in 2023.
Double US Seniors major winner Richard Bland remains the most successful player in the Hampshire Open’s history, having won the event six times between 1993 and 2000 – three in a row as an amateur and three more in succession as a professional.
An amateur has won the Hampshire Open 13 times in total, with Hayling’s Matt Blackey (1997) and Brian Winteridge (1976 and 1981) also on the honours board.
Alresford honorary member David Harrison, the former R&A captain, has the most County Salver wins with four, one more than Bland’s total, with Brian Winteridge, Clive Cole, Nigel Graves, Kevin Weeks and Toby Burden having two each.
The youngest winner of the County Salver was Brokenhurst Manor’s Mike Smith, who was just 17 in 1987, a year before he won the British Youths title, further evidence of how he was a future star of the game before his tragic death in a car accident in 1990.
Share