Hail Mary Putt Saves Priest!

The fairways and final green at Scarcroft Golf Club witnessed drama aplenty as Yorkshire’s top seniors battled out an epic 2024 Championship.

For much of the second round it looked like the winner would come from one of the later groups out on course as seasoned county men Richard Norton and Johnny Lawrence, playing together, exchanged leads coming down the back stretch.

In front of Norton/Lawrence, Seniors Captain Andy King was hardly ever more than a shot off the lead, while behind them Phil Kitching and Andy Wiltshire hovered on or around the lead mark.

As Norton and Lawrence stood on the 18th tee however, the updated scoring app showed that Fulford’s Steven Greenwood had signed off for a +1 round of 72 and a +4 total. He had the lead.

When Beverley & ER man Norton fired his drive wide right and had to reload, it looked like Moor Allerton’s Lawrence was the only real challenger left. He was one back of Greenwood and hit the reachable par-5 in 2.

Alongside Lawrence and Norton and a further shot back – as he had been pretty much all day – was Hallowes man Stefan Priest. Priest bombed his drive down the middle then hit the front half of the green from 188 yards.

An inferior second round score meant Lawrence needed to hole his chip from an awkward lie just through the back of the 18th in order to overtake Greenwood. When that came up short, Greenwood could have been forgiven for starting to celebrate. But then Priest drained a 60ft putt for eagle, matched the Fulford man’s +4 and his tournament best -1 second round meant he was the 2024 champion by virtue of countback.

He had leapfrogged 17 places from his position at the end of the first round. He was also stunned to

hear he was the champ as he walked off the 18th. “I had no idea!” he said. “I was just playing it a shot at a time.”

Although the eagle proved vital, no less so was a bogey on 12 – which could have easily been a disastrous seven or eight.

After 11 consecutive pars, Priest pulled his tee shot left, over a ditch. “It was a poor drive,” he said. “I probably should have taken relief.”

In trying to get back in play he only succeeded in burying his ball in the hazard and had to take a penalty drop. Playing into a stiff breeze he then shaped a 6-iron around overhanging trees.“I thought I was unlucky not to make the putting surface,” he said of the pure recovery shot. It mattered not as he chipped in to ‘save’ a bogey and an immediate birdie-2 at the 13th repaired the damage.

“I think I only missed two greens today, so that was important,” he added. That second ‘miss’ at the par-3 15th cost his only other dropped shot of the round.

There was an element of justice done for Priest, who had lost the 2022 Seniors at Selby in similar fashion, on countback to Dave Sanby.

Scarcroft gave the seniors a real challenge and Priest’s closing round was the only under par score over the first two days of July. Garforth’s Andy King had led after the first round on +1, thanks in large part to a run of three birdies between the 6th and 9th.

His challenge was damaged early on in his second round though, bogeys at 2 and 5 being followed by a double on the par-3 7th, when back-to-back chips from above left never made the slippery downhill green.

King regained his composure with just a single bogey and par through the last 11 holes but he couldn’t get anything significant to drop and finished alongside Lawrence just a shot back of Priest and Greenwood.

A pair of 74s for Harrogate Union President Phil Kitching earned him 6th place, while three bogeys in his final four holes dropped Norton to +7 alongside Pontefract’s Andy Wiltshire.

Wiltshire started the second round just one back from leader King and was in a share of the lead through the front 9, but two bogeys and a double coming home proved costly, just a birdie at the last leaving him alongside Norton on +7.

On the same mark was Pannal’s Carl Bushby, who took the Veterans Champion trophy for over 65s.