Graham and Blondel the simply irresistible pair

LAURENCE GRAHAM JUNIOR is enjoying quite a purple patch. The four-handicapper joined forces with island player Danny Blondel to win the prestigious Noel Shield last week, just days after he had claimed the Garenne Trophy in the Royal Guernsey Club Championship for best net total and finished second only to Bobby Eggo in the scratch standings.

And to top it off, he also had a little wager on Padraig Harrington in the Open.

'It was a good week,' said Graham.

'We have the President's Prize on Thursday and I am the holder of that, so I will be trying to defend it.'

His partnership with Blondel has so far proved unbeatable in the Noel Shield foursomes competition.

'We played in it in 2002 - that was the first year we played together - and we won it,' Graham said.

'I was travelling the next year and then Danny was away so we had not played in it again until this year, so we have not lost in it yet.

'We are going to aim to defend it next year.'

The combination certainly improved as the competition went on this time around.

In their opening tie, Alan Le Noury and Steve Langlois took them to the 21st hole before finally being edged out and in the quarter-final Mark Collas and Barry Hockey were defeated on the last.

Graham and Blondel had to come from behind to get through their semi-final 2 and 1 against Gerry Finn and Ken Tucknott and book their place in the final.

There they met Mick Fustic and John Booth on a glorious evening at L'Ancresse and the youngsters made the most of the conditions, winning 4 and 3.

'We had some tricky games at the start, but we did get better as it went on,' Graham said.

'We were actually three down after three in the semi-final but were one under from there on in.

'We dropped only one shot in the final, at the 12th, and we were level par for the 15 we played, so we were happy with that.

'We knew that if we played solidly we would be hard to beat and we did not make many mistakes.'