Nessling on a roll to tie with Simpson

Paul Nessling recorded his second victory in three days to reach the Titleist & FootJoy PGA Professional Championship final.

The Cooden Beach professional had already qualified for the English PGA Championship final with victory at Canterbury Golf Club earlier in the week.

But the East Sussex player then continued his rich vein of form at The Lambourne Club in Buckinghamshire.

He carded a four under par round of 68 to tie at the top of the leaderboard with West Berkshire’s Paul Simpson.

They eased two shots clear of Winchester Golf Academy’s Daniel Seymour.

They and 10 other qualifiers will now head to Little Aston Golf Club in Sutton Coldfield for the £78,000 grand final which is being held between July 24-27.

And for Simpson it will be a chance to turn back the clock.

“I haven’t played Little Aston for a while, that’s Brian Rimmer’s club and I was on the same PGA Cup team as him in 1998 in the States,” he said.

“The last time I played there was at an Open qualifier, but that was years ago. It’s a lovely course and I’m sure it won’t have changed that much.”

Simpson also made the PGA Cup team nine years ago and says the final is a chance to gain early points for the 2019 event to be held in the USA.

“I’ve played in quite a few PGA Professional Championships now, it’s a great event, our pinnacle event. Even if you’re not playing that well, you enter and see what happens, sometime it’s rubbish, but here I was quite steady and I didn’t have any problems, the conditions were fine and it was a good day for me,” he said.

“You always look ahead and hope when it comes to the PGA Cup. I didn’t have many expectations for this simply because I haven’t played for various reasons.”