Stoneham GC's Jack Warren will feel Delhi Cup pressure

The former Hampshire Junior Champion bounced back onto the county stage two weeks ago with a third-place finish in the Hampshire Hog at North Hants GC.

The Delhi was once the private reserve of Stoneham’s four-time county champion Ryan Henley, who won the competition five years in a row up until 2014, when Darren Walkley claimed the crown.

Stoneham GC’s Jack Warren tees off at the 10th in the second round of the Selborne Salver at Blackmoor Golf Club. (Image: Andrew Griffin/AMG Pictures)

That year, the Delhi became the opening event of the new Hampshire Order of Merit, and in recent years a member of the Hampshire first team has claimed the crown come Saturday evening.

Stoneham’s county champion James Freeman, who picked up two Hampshire U18 titles in the three years after Warren’s win in 2017, took the honours in 2022, just two months before landing the Sloane-Stanley Challenge Cup at the county championship.

Since then, Elliot Groves, George Saunders and former England international James Knight have taken the trophy up on the hill overlooking the M3, on the outskirts of Winchester.

Stoneham GC’s Jack Warren (Image: Supplied)

Warren, who admitted he had fallen out of love with the game since graduating after a four-year golf scholarship in the States, but after a winter spent rededicating himself to golf, he burst out of the blocks in the Hog and 24 hours earlier playing in the Selborne Salver, at Blackmoor GC.

Those two events have superseded the Delhi as the first two qualifying events in the Hampshire Order of Merit.

And Warren has the added incentive of knowing that if he can remain in the top three of the Order of Merit standings come Saturday night, he will have opened the door to making his debut for the county’s first team, when they begin their South East League season with a tough trip to Kent at the end of May.

Warren, who is also a member at Hockley, knows every blade of grass on the chalkland course, which can be very exposed to the winds whipping across the hilltop holes.

He said: “As a golfer and being a member at Hockley, I would say how you play the golf course completely depends on the weather that day.

“If its fairly still you can really get it going but if it starts blowing you start having to play away from some flags and it can become tough.

“When it’s windy it’s just about taking your opportunities on the hole that presents themselves.

"My best score around Hockley is, from memory, seven-under having shot a 64.

“I think in a 36-hole event like the Delhi, it’s just about keeping yourself up there after round one and then seeing what you’re going to have to do in the afternoon really.”

Report by Andrew Griffin