Too Good Tovey

David Morgan - Saturday, 15 October, 2011

Saturday 15th October - The West Midlands Golf and County Club - the 2011 Junior Order of Merit Championship - From unknown to record setter, Olton's Rob Tovey became an example for any Warwickshire Junior that never having been noticed by the County is no barrier to becoming the Junior Order of Merit Champion.

Too old by just 24 hours to be able to show how good he has become at Junior County level, in a Summer of superb golf playing across our County in Club Junior Opens, one name was Top 5 (as a minimum) time and time again.

Rob Tovey started 2011 off a 7 handicap. he has finished playing off 3 and what he did was added to by how he took control of his own destiny at this year's Junior Order of Merit Championship.

Bar Tovey and barely a handful of others, this year's qualifiers for the Championship showed how good our younger players are. The majority of the field were U16 and included most of the potential 'stars of the future'.

The Warwickshire's Callum Reay (one of the younger up-and-coming players) led three Top 15 qualifiers from his club. Coventry and Kenilworth were the other clubs represented by more than one player whilst 2010 Champion Luke Allen (Shirley) knew he could not retain his title but was anxious to make Top 5 in the final JOM.

For the second time in a row the name Broadhurst appeared on the start sheet of a Warwickshire championship, this time Sam, son of Paul Broadhurst who tried to win the Warwickshire Open 'double' last month - as an amateur and a professional.

In terms of shots lost from handicaps, Sam could boast six (16-11), whilst Callum went from 9-4 (five shots). The biggest shot reduction was that of one of the youngest, James Scagell (Ladbrook) who went from 20 to 11 over this last season.

Three players could take the overall Junior Order of Merit - Tovey, Rob Owens and Reay. Owens and Reay needed to be winners or runners up with Tovey out of the points (given for the top 11 from the elite field of 22).

When Tovey stood in the middle of the 8th fairway, whilst playing the 7th, he was very much in control of his own destiny. Rob was though out of bounds and so scored nothing on that hole and with two pars to finish the front nine, he was three points behind Reay and mid-field overall.

Reay then birdied the 10th to go four points ahead - how could Tovey respond?

Just as he had done all summer, Tovey was imperious. With three straight gross birdies he put nine points on his card whilst Reay could only manage five. They were back to 'all square' and with Reay finishing with five pars, Rob could afford two bogies after he had taken advantage of one of his three shots in the full handicap stableford which is always used to decide the day's Champion and all the points that go with it.

'My heart was really thumping as I stood over my tee shot to the 18th' said Tovey of the short iron he selected to try and find The West Midlands' notorious 18th, with its island green.

Finding the putting surface was accomplished and coming home in 20 points was good enough for Tovey to take 4th place in the final competition of his Junior career. It gave him 1000 points so assuring he would be No1 for the whole year.

Callum came back in 18 points for T2nd in the Championship, alongside Harborne's Will Turner who after going out in two under par gross (22 points), had a very (in)different back-nine of just 15.

The Championship winner was last year's JOM No 1, Luke Allen, whose 39 point and the 300 JOM points that went with it was enough to take Luke up to 4th in this years' overall table.

'I am really chuffed', said Tovey after he had been presented with the Post and Mail Salver and a Scotty Cameron putter as his reward, 'It was a long haul and setting some records was great.'

The records set by Tovey were for the overall points (12 655) and notably point from Junior Opens (8205) the latter breaking the record of Rob Browning by more that 2 500 points (a record also broken by Rob Owens and Rob Copperthwaite.

It simply was monotonous how Tovey racked up points from virtually every Open he played in - winning the gross prize in the majority. That record looks very hard to beat and his 8200 points in that section of the competition was also 300 more than the total posted by Chris Evans in Year one of the JOM, a total that came only from wins across the board in County events.

For the final Top 15 (as a PDF) CLICK HERE

JOM - Top 3

1 - Rob Tovey - Olton - 12 555

2 - Callum Ray - The Warwickshire - 10 775

3 - Rob Owens - Kenilworth - 10 450

Top Club performances - clubs not represented in the Top 3

Alex Maskell - Oakridge

Chris Upson - Moor Hall

Nathan Ray - Maxstoke

Luke Allen - Shirley

Rob Cooperthwaite - Stratford

Andrew Scott - Hearsall