Jolly Rodgers puts rivals to sword at Sittingbourne

Chris Rodgers showed his experience to ease to the top of the leaderboard in the Galvin Green PGA Assistants’ Championship qualifying event at  Sittingbourne & Milton Regis Golf Club.

Asian Tour regular Rodgers will now aim to improve on last year’s grand final appearance when he finished fifth.

Twickenham-based Rodgers also qualified for last year’s Open at Hoylake and harbours ambitions of a return to the European Tour.

And he booked his return to the £32,500 grand final to be held at Coventry Golf Club on August 5-7 with a two-under-par round of 69 to win by one shot.

He pipped five players who tied on one-under-par. They included Jack Harrison (Wildwood Golf & Country Club) who finished third at Coventry last year after leading for the first two rounds.

Ladies European Tour player Samantha Head (Donnington Grove Country Club) also finished joint second while Sian Evans (Kings Hill Golf Club) was also among the 19 qualifiers.

Rodgers admits he should have embarked on the PGA training course years ago.

The 39-year-old said: “I’m throughly enjoying the Assistants’ game and the PGA qualification is a good thing to have on your CV.

“I’m still looking to play for a while longer yet though and it’ll be good to go back to Coventry.

“I did well there last year and I’d like to think I could do better, but whether I can win it or not is another matter.

“I wish I’d done my PGA training years ago. It’s very thorough and adds a few more strings to the bow.

“But things are different when you’re 18, I’m 39 now and it’s good to finally do it.”

Rodgers admitted that he was always looking to play a steady game at Sittingbourne and it paid off.

“I won a pro-am event there recently so I knew what the course was like,” he said.

“But I just wanted to qualify so I didn’t take any risks or do anything dangerous.

“I bogeyed the 13th hole but that was my only one.

“It’s always nice to get your name at the top of the leaderboard.”