Houston stages a master class!

Garry Houston won the GW Insurance Cheshire & North Wales Masters at Denbigh where the only lapse in his round of two-under-par 68 was a bogey at the opening hole.

And the former European and Challenge Tour player, the golf services supervisor at Carden Park, was clearly relieved to end his recent run of second places.

“I didn’t make the best of starts by bogeying the first but didn’t drop a shot after that and posted three birdies from the ninth,” he said.

Houston had the advantage of knowing the course like the proverbial back of his hand. “I was an assistant there as a 16-year-old,” he revealed.      

LEADING SCORES: 68 Garry Houston (Carden Park); 69 Matthew Tottey (North Wales), Graham Cox (Lymm), Benjamin Thompson (Hazel Grove), Rhodri Fieldhouse (American Golf); 71 Michael Jones (Royal Liverpool), Phil Archer (Poulton Park), Jason Shufflebotham Denbigh)