Circencester bounce back in style to claim final place

** All the best images from the qualifier here. 

Cirencester Golf Club staged a superb recovery to book their place in  the Golfplan Insurance PGA Pro-Captain Challenge final in Turkey.

Captain Mark Woodhead (right) and PGA Professional Ed Goodwin (left) carded a seven-under-par round of 62 to top the leaderboard.

They won by two shots ahead of Philip Bryden and Les Thorne (Alresford) and Dusan Gavrilovic and Hans Menzel (Studley Wood).

Woodhead and Goodwin will go to the £25,000 final, supported by Canopius, over the PGA Sultan course at Antalya Golf Club, Turkey, from November 26-27.

But their victory charge stalled at the 15th hole when they made a double bogey.

That left them at four-under but they stayed calm and rallied to birdie the last three holes in the event held at Blackmoor Golf Club in Hampshire.

“Ed played superbly,” said Woodhead, 62, who plays off a handicap of eight.

“We ran into trouble at the 15th hole but then knuckled down and finished strongly.

“It really was a fantastic day.

“And it’s the first time we’ve ever entered this competition so that makes it doubly special.

Woodhead is a retired property manager from Cirencester and is relishing the chance to play alongside Goodwin in Turkey.

“It sounds like a fabulous venue,” he said.

But Goodwin admitted he feared the worst after their double bogey.

“I thought we’d lost it,” he said.

“But to come back like we did was great as we managed to get home comfortably by two shots.

“We’d been going pretty well before the 15th so it did give us a bit of a scare.

“This is the first time any of my captains has been able to make the date for the qualifying event, so I’ve waited about 10 years to play in it.

“We haven’t done badly considering it’s our first time.”