Suffolk bid to regain silverware

Inaugural PGA England & Wales Inter-County champions Suffolk will look to kick-start their bid to reclaim the silverware in the Bush Hill Park regional qualifier.

The county, which won the very first staging of the £10,000 event in 2013, missed out on a place in the final last year with the trophy eventually heading north to Yorkshire.

This year the side will boast one remaining member of the championship-winning team. Lawrence Dodd (Bury Golf Range) will be joined by West Suffolk’s Ben Kerr and Andrew Robinson (Southwold).

They will head to the Middlesex venue on August 25 in the hope of securing a place in the championship final over the PGA National Course at the Belfry on October 13-14.

The West Midlands venue is best known for its ties to the Ryder Cup, having hosted the prestigious matchplay event on four occasions, in 1985, 1989, 1993 and 2002.

If Suffolk are to qualify they will have to overcome teams from Bedfordshire & Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Middlesex and Norfolk.

The latter will be buoyed by the inclusion of Ian Ellis, who made the cut at the flagship BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth earlier this year.

Essex, meanwhile, will hope Jason Levermore can lead them to glory just three weeks before he heads to California to represent Great Britain & Ireland at the PGA Cup, a biennial event pitting club pros from the British Isles against their American counterparts.

The teams competing in the qualifier at Bush Hill park are: Beds & Cambs; Stuart Brown (Thorpe Wood), Jason Boast (Cambridge), Luke Bowers (Lakeside Lodge); Essex; Steven Cipa (South Essex), Jason Levermore (Channels), Scott Clark (Benton Hall); Hertfordshire; James Ruebotham (Welwyn Garden City), Peter Cherry (Ashridge), Stephen Harris (The Shire); Middlesex; Michael Moore (Pinner Hill), Glynn Harris (Mill Hill), Nicholas Pateman (Pinner Hill); Norfolk; Ian Ellis (Great Yarmouth & Caister), Mark Spooner (Glen Lodge) and Lee Paterson (Royal Cromer).