Southwell aiming to race into second successive final

Southwell Golf Club is hoping its PGA Professional can take the reins and lead it to a second successive final appearance when he tees up in the Lombard Trophy regional final at Kedleston Park on Monday, June 3.

Chris White, who reached last year’s grand final in Mexico where he finished 11th with his then playing partner Mick Daly (both pictured above), is bidding for another shot at the famous title with club captain Roger Ruane.

The Nottinghamshire club duo is bidding to reach the grand final which will be staged over the 2014 Ryder Cup PGA Centenary course at Gleneagles from September 3-4.

And Ruane, a 51-year-old recruitment consultant from Newark, hopes they can relive last year’s glory.

“Chris is a good friend of mine and he was keeping me updated every 10 minutes during last year’s event as they were getting close to making the final,” said the 12 handicapper.

“It was a big achievement for the club to make it to a prestige PGA final and of course we’d love to do it again but it will be competitive.

“But we’re probably one of the smaller clubs in the area so it was good to have a taste of the limelight.”

Ruane also hopes that his experience of regularly playing alongside White will bring some on-course benefits to help achieve their goal.

“We’ve been playing in a lot of pro-captain events so we’re used to working as team and gelling well,” he added.

“That’s important when it comes to an event like this as it won’t be as if we’ve never played together before.”

And Ruane knows the prize on offer is worth playing for.

“To make it through to Gleneagles and play at the Ryder Cup venue would be fantastic.”

The Kedleston Park qualifier is the first of 16 Lombard Trophy regional finals being contested across the UK with just one team going through to the grand final.

The prize fund for the tournament has been increased from £50,000 to £80,000 with the winning PGA Professional earning £12,000.

Other teams taking part at Kedleston Park include Neville Hallam and John Newnham (Alfreton Golf Club);  Lee Challinor and Michael Howkins (Lutterworth);  Ben Delderfield-Brown and Mike Hughes (Izaak Walton) and host pro Ian Walley and Ian Neal (Kedleston Park).