Burton celebrates Trilby golfing triumph at Goodwood

From the moment the first tee shot was struck at 7am, the players faced an anxious wait on the first tee before starting their rounds.

The target for each player was to finish in the top ten to progress through to the Trilby Tour final which will be held at the Buckingham Club on August 11. The top four from the day would play off for the title of Sussex champion.

It was clear the ¾ handicap stableford format coupled with the difficult Downs course was going to make scoring difficult and by the time the first few groups passed through the turn, it was clear 30 points would be a good score.

There was one exception to this in Andy Jones, an eight-handicap Trilby veteran who scored a fabulous 21 points on the front nine and finished with 36 points quite early in the day to set the mark which looked unlikely to be beaten.

Many of the players struggled to come to terms with the course and this was reflected in the scores.

Alec Stoner and Darren Burton came in with 33 and 34 points respectively and looked assured of a top-four spot.

The pressure was certainly on Chris Dyson, the defending Trilby Champion who was playing his home course. The pressure was certainly added to by Trilby Tour founder William Hunt, who proceeded to introduce Chris as the ‘Ice Man’ throughout the build-up to his tee time.

Chris responded with 18 points on the front nine and despite the heavens opening over his last three holes, Chris finished with a very respectable 33 points.

Seven players tied on 30 points and took part in a nearest-the-pin shootout to progress to the final.

This then left the three- hole play-off between Chris Dyson, Alec Stoner, Andy Jones and Darren Burton to determine the champion of Sussex.

In a tight play-off, Dyson and Jones finished two over and Stoner and Burton both holed good puts on the last to finish one over, which meant a sudden-death hole which Darren Burton won after holing a tricky 6ft putt. Darkness was drawing in as Darren received his trophy from William Hunt after a fabulous event.