Bob's your uncle!

BY CHRIS STRATFORD

Moortown's Robert Treweek had not played Doncaster for 35 years when he headed there for the 2021 Yorkshire Seniors' championship, but he left it the same way as he had before – as a winner. Treweek came from four shots back of first-round leader Gary Catt (Richmond) to win by one shot from Garforth's Andy King, while Catt slipped to fourth behind Alan Wright, of Ganstead Park. On his previous and only other visit to the South Yorkshire course Treweek won the individual title in the county team championship, so his hopes were high on his return and scores of 72 71 showed his optimism was well placed. King shot 75 69, Wright 73 73 and Catt 68 78 while Hessle's Rodney Shimwell took the veterans' title with rounds of 80 75. Treweek has won many competitions in an illustrious club, union and county career that he revealed was assisted by former rugby league star player and coach Roy Francis - despite a young Treweek having broken a window in his former neighbour's home. “My family moved house when I was 14 and I was doing a bit of chipping in the back garden when Roy called me over,” recalled the now 55-year-old Treweek. “He said, 'come on, let’s see what you’re like' and I chipped a few and he said, 'yeah, that was very good'. “We were right down in the back of his garden and there was a rockery in front of his house. I kept chipping onto the rockery and they were bouncing off the rocks and one went straight through one of his windows. His wife was on the phone at the time and she was shaking, but great sporting coach that he was Roy just said, 'don’t worry, we are insured'.” Francis helped Treweek become a member at Leeds (Cobble Hall) where, before a switch to Moortown in 1988, he put his name on numerous honours boards, such was his ability at a game that he admits was a teenage obsession. He was single figures by the end of his first year and off one by the age of 17. For five years he was a regular for Yorkshire Colts – the under-22 level of representative county golf that was subsequently replaced by Yorkshire Boys, under-18 – and his recent victory at Doncaster earned him a cap at senior level in last month's match with Northumberland. Becoming Yorkshire seniors champion led to a deluge of congratulatory emails, texts and phone calls, and also – he hopes – made an impression on son Sam, 18, and daughter Molly, 16, who are too young to have been aware of much of his golfing success. “I've won a few things over the years, but I’ve never had quite as much attention as I’ve had from this one. It's been amazing,” he said. Treweek was playing in his second Yorkshire seniors' championship having finished four shots shy of the winning mark on his debut at The Oaks last year when he felt, with a hotter putter, he could have challenged. He was undaunted by Catt's four-shot overnight advantage at Doncaster, commenting: “I didn’t have a problem with that. I genuinely felt I could still win it. “I wasn’t fazed by it. I thought, 'if I shoot 68 and he shoots a 72 or 73, which is still a good score, I will win'. I thought, 'if he’s done it, I’ll do it'. “It didn’t quite turn out like that, but he obviously had a bit of bad luck on the back nine in the second round, and things fell in my lap, as it were. “On the second day the wind got up and it’s a very sandy course, so it was very bouncy and a 10-15mph wind made it really quite tricky. You had to be right on your game, so my scores were quite alright really. “I didn’t putt particularly well the second round. I didn’t really miss anything, I holed out well, but I didn’t hole anything more than 5ft. But I did have a chip-in on the seventh, which was a really big bonus “Putting-wise I could have birdied four of the last five, I was eight to 10ft away on perfect greens and you should at least be holing one or two of those. But I couldn’t read them although I think I was probably getting a bit cautious, a bit tentative. You’re coming down the stretch and you don’t want to race four of five feet past and then miss it coming back, so you tend to dribble it up to the cup a bit and when it’s losing pace it takes the break.”