Blondel aces at the third

JAMIE BLONDEL was the talk of L'Ancresse last evening as he hit a hole-in-one on his way to making the island championship quarter-finals. The ace came at the third during his match against his cousin Danny with the match standing all-square.

With the pin invitingly placed toward the back left of the green, the Guernsey player hit a seven-iron which pitched around 10 yards short of the hole and rolled straight in.

None of the family - Tony and Martyn Blondel were caddying for Jamie and Danny respectively - back on the tee were quite sure where the ball had finished and Danny almost proceeded to follow his cousin in with a crisp shot the landed next to the hole and finished within 8ft.

It was Jamie's sixth hole-in-one and it brought mixed feelings to his father Tony, who immediately looked forward to the drinks being on his son but meant junior had doubled his tally of holes-in-one.

'It was a bit different from yesterday,' said a grinning Jamie, in reference to his topped tee shot on the same hole the previous day, which travelled no more than 50 yards.

The match was back to all-square after six but the more experienced of the two pulled away to a comfortable 5 and 4 victory.

In the last eight he will meet Steve Mahy, who staged a remarkable comeback, winning the last four holes on the trot against Michael Hockey.

The big upset came in the first match out with top seed Danny Bisson knocked out of the competition by Jason Savident, one up.

Savident's reward is a quarter-final against Jack Mitchell, who was in imperious form against Dave Jeffrey. The man from La Grande Mare did not do much wrong, but Mitchell was hard to live with - an eagle at the sixth being just one of his highlights.

Defending champion Nigel Vaudin meets the top remaining seed, Bobby Eggo, this evening after both eased through their third round encounters with Chris Thompson and Hedley Ablitt respectively.

The other quarter-final in that half of the draw will be between Dave Nicolle and Mick Marley, winners over Craig Allen and Danny Vennard respectively.