Tie earns third win for Haines in Burnham pairs

Home professional David Haines with club amateur Jack Palmer and George Ryall (Players Club) partnered by Clevedon assistant Ashley Mansell shared the top place in the annual Gloucester and Somerset PGA Pairs Championship, sponsored this year for the first time by Howards Motor Group of Weston-super-Mare.

PGA board member Haines and Palmer, a Somerset county amateur player  from Wells who is  the Burnham club’s bar manager, shot eight-under-par 62 with equal halves of 31 finishing with Haines making a crucial closing birdie as he claimed his third victory in the event.

Mansell and Ryall enjoyed the best second nine holes of the day and Mansell also picked up a shot on the final hole as the pair completed a five-under back nine score of 30.

No fewer than seven pairs were separated by just two shots over the Burnham Channel Course, a nine-hole lay-out with 18 tees.

The 18 pairs faced an unusually calm day on the Somerset coast as the teams completed two laps of the nine holes with a two-man scramble over the first nine played followed by a betterball the second time around.

Knowle’s Nigel Warburton and David Williams set the early pace reaching the turn in just 27 strokes. Mendip’s Kevin Pitts and his amateur assistant Liam Copp shot 29 but both pairs faded slightly on the second circuit and eventually ended in a five-way tie for third position.

John Blackburn/Will Hobbs (Mendip Spring), Terry Williams/Josh Hilleard (Farrington Park) and Louis Boston (Windmill Hill)/Lee Corfield

(Burnham) also shot 63.