Leighton Buzzard golfing champion is a cut above the rest

Retired hairdresser Anne Tilbury beat 42 club colleagues to win Leighton Buzzard Golf Club’s Beck Trophy – a ‘Champion of Champions’ event restricted to members who have won another competition in the same year, writes Stuart Oliver.

Playing off a handicap of 18, Anne hit a a nett 65 to beat club colleagues Barbara Bradley and George Elford by four shots.

No stranger to winning events in the Ladies section of the club she joined 22 years ago, just weeks later Anne was beaten on countback for the Ladies Oliver Wood trophy by Lynne Newnham after both finished with 37 points.

Vision technician Billy O’Neill bucketed a 130-yard tee-shot on Leighton Buzzard’s 9th hole to become a member of an exclusive club to hit holes-in-one on all four Par 3 holes on the Plantation Road course.

It was Billy’s seventh ace at the club he joined 30 years ago.

Eight pairs of golfers have now qualified for the final of Leighton’s Captains’ Cup, with the winners of further Saturday and Sunday qualifiers joining them before the final on April 8.

The latest qualifiers are Lewis Monk and James Northern who topped the table in the Saturday competition with 46 points, beating David Evans and George Mills on countback after both teams finished with 46 points.

George had better luck on Sunday when he qualified with Trevor McAleese with 48 points.

Dave Evans finished runner-up for a second time in 24 hours after carding 43 points with former club champion Ed Stephenson along with Philip Spratt Callaghan and Jack McGarry, Graham Magill and Phil Coumbe and John Banwell and Jamie Stone.

Other final qualifiers are Ben Willis and Russell Cohena; Tony Brinded and Craig Eustance; Chris Hawkins and Dharm Diwaker, Dean Mercer and Ian Woodman, Tim Mitchell and John McKay, and Simon Rose and Barry Witherden.