Banks lands fourth crown, Black a third

HELEN BANKS shot matching gross 79s to win her fourth La Grande Mare women's championship. The Beaucamps PE teacher won by three strokes from Nikki Coquelin and benefited from a two in each round played in far from perfect conditions.

Strangely, Banks covered the front nine in 41 and back half in 38, on both days.

Neil Black won the men's title by a similar margin from Hedley Ablitt and like the women's champion the Irishman is no stranger to winning the club strokeplay title.

This was the third occasion he has done so.

His back-to-back 69s were two of just three sub-70 rounds over the weekend, the other coming from Ablitt on day two.

Black, who has not played a lot this summer, was happy enough with his weekend's work.

'The first day there was quite a bit of wind around so to shoot sub 70 was the plan and I managed to do that.

'On the second day I was one-under gross after eight but then things went a little haywire. I had a bit of difficulty with my putting on the back nine,' said the two- handicap.

Off handicap, it was Alan Ellis and Carolyn Mallett who went home most happy.

For Ellis, who captained St Martin's to an Upton Park Cup triumph two decades ago, it represented his first solo triumph since taking up golf just two years ago.

Playing off 22, he won by three shots from another fast-improving playere, Matt Neville, after posting rounds of 63 and 57.

'On day one everything went for me and I only three-putted once,' the winner said.

'I didn't birdie any holes but won nearest-the-pin on the 11th.

'The second day was a good, solid round, very pleasing,' he added.

Ellis' excellence was not good news for 15-handicap Neville, runner-up also in the big HSBC Open in July.

Only Glen Lindsay, who shot an opening 58, stood above him at the end of the first day when he shot 61.

He followed it with a 62 on the following day and on another weekend might well have triumphed.

It could have been much better, too, said Neville, who has seen his handicap immediately reduced to 12.

'I was seven under until the 17th on the first day where I came off with a seven on the par three.

'I put one in the water and the next into a bunker.'

A two-hole blip also blighted his second round.

'I was playing quite a bit under my handicap until the 14th and 15th,' he added.

His 36-holes total of 123 left him three behind Ellis and one ahead of Kevin Buckley who won the category one/two prize.

* CAROL DUNCAN won the La Grande Mare women's section's Mateus Rose Stableford competition.

Her 43 points lifted her three clear of runner-up Angela Baker.