Juniors fall in last 16 of Elite Foursomes

Although the McKenna brothers, Rory and Conor, were convincing winners of their last-16 tie, two promising all-junior pairings fell at the first hurdle of the matchplay stage.

The first of those – Tanner Austin and Noah Davy – put up an impressive fight against the regular Guernsey combination of Jamie Blondel and Steve Mahy, particularly on the front nine where the youngsters held a slight edge over their high-profile opponents.

But the L’Ancresse clubmates moved through the gears on the back nine to ensure safe progress into the quarter-finals with three holes to spare in the end.

Meanwhile, the teenage duo of Jayden Tucknott and Lewis Marley went into their clash with Tim Halden and Wayne Harwood as favourites on the seeding from Sunday’s qualifier, but they also came up against opponents who are proven battlers when it comes to head-to-head competition.

It turned out to be a really hard-fought encounter and one of three of the last-16 matches to require an extra hole to reach a conclusion.

Halden and Harwood had held a narrow one-hole lead at the turn and they had doubled that advantage by the time they had reached the 13th, but Tucknott holed a decent-length birdie putt from the back edge of that green to halve the deficit once more.

The gap was still one as they came down 16, where Halden’s tee shot found a horrible spot just to the right of the fairway, which led to a bogey and they were back to all-square.

After a half on 17, Harwood went agonisingly close to holing from long distance for a two on the last before Tucknott hit the hole with his birdie putt, but the pace kept it out.

The youngster then hit his tee shot on the 19th into the gorse on the left-hand side while Harwood hit a beauty straight down the middle and the subsequent par was enough for him and Halden to progress.

Earlier, the top seeds had also been taken down the 19th by Daniel Griggs and Harry Bushby, who came extremely close to causing an upset.

They had quickly established a 2 up lead over Danny Bisson and Tom Pattimore, who clawed it back to all-square by the turn with Bisson chipping in on the ninth.

But Griggs and Bushby forged ahead again by winning 10 and 11 before losing the 12th then quickly responding with a birdie on the 13th to get back to 2 up.

Bisson and Pattimore kept battling, though, winning holes 15 and 17 to level the match.

On the last, Griggs had a 12ft birdie opportunity to win it and he hit the back of the hole, but the ball stayed out and that proved to be their chance gone as a regulation par on the 19th was enough for the top seeds to set up a quarter-final with the other combination to win on the first extra hole, Michel Davy and Jason Savident, who finished in great style with back-to-back birdies to knock out Jack Mitchell and Stuart Wallbridge.

Father-and-son Dave and Jeremy Nicolle enjoyed far more serene progress into the last eight with a comfortable win over Andy Chamberlain and Phil Rowe while the all-pro duo Harrison Brown and Ronnie Casey overcame tough resistance from Roland Mills and Dave Robinson in 17 holes.

The other quarter-finalists are last year’s runners-up Tom Le Huray and Wayne Moore who just edged out CJ Elmy and Dave Jeffery.