So when James Williams revealed that his long-term ambition in the sport is ‘just to see how good I can actually get’, he had to add with a laugh that it cannot get much better than it did at the weekend when he came in late in the day with an excellent 64 nett to leapfrog the earlier pacesetters, win the prestigious silverware and earn his place on the honours board.
‘It’s a good one to tick off the list,’ said the winner with a broad smile as he proudly held the trophy at Sunday’s presentation.
‘It feels great. I was on cloud nine last night, the adrenaline was pumping when I got home.’
Playing off 18, Williams’ round was really solid, with seven pars and just one double as he went around in 82, covering the front nine in 40 and coming home in 42.
He finished one shot ahead of both Graham Warner and Bobby Eggo on a day of good scoring when 19 players finished under par.
Williams reported that his putting was the key to his success.
‘I managed to get the speed of the greens pretty early on, had no three putts, which was good, and just kept it steady.’
In the last month or so, top players from both here and Jersey have been praising the work done by the greenkeepers, with the L’Ancresse Links greens in superb conditions.
So does this win mean Williams likes quick greens?
‘I don’t normally, this is the weird thing, but yesterday just seemed to be my day,’ he said.
Williams also revealed that he did not keep track of his score either.
‘I knew I was on for a good score, I didn’t know how good.
‘I try to do my best, keep focused, and just try to par as many as I can. And if I can’t, then at least a minimum of bogey.
‘Every week I try not to look at my scorecard. If I’m good or bad, just play and go from there.’
Williams has returned to golf having started as a junior before focusing on football, and it is quite obvious that he has the bug for the sport now.
‘I played as a junior when I was 13, 14, growing up with the likes of Tom Le Huray, Sean Mills, Craig Shorto, Jack Mitchell, all those boys, but football was always my number one sport.
‘Then as I’ve got older, I’ve retired from football, and I just want to see how good I can really get at golf and really push myself.
‘So since I’ve retired from football, it’s all golf, golf, golf and really practising, just to see how good I can personally get at this sport and do the best I can because I know I can play the sport for a good 30 or 40 years.’
While there was a new name on the Open trophy, Jamie Blondel claimed the Scratch Salver for the second time in three years.
However, in contrast to Williams, he set an early pace that no-one else was able to match as the only player to finish under par.
In fact, it turned out to be a duel between him and playing partner Dale Rutledge for the top spot in the scratch standings with the Siam Cup rugby star in front going to the last, having earlier hit one of the shots of the day as he holed out for an eagle on the 10th from 120m.
However, a double at the last cost Rutledge dearly while Blondel finished with back-to-back threes to card a one-under 69.
‘This is one of the ones that you look at at the start of the season, we call them our majors over here and you’ve got likes of the UV, the Le Riche, Piccadilly and then obviously L’Ancresse Open.
‘It is one of the big ones, so yeah it’s fantastic to win it again,’ said Blondel, who made five birdies on the day as he went out on 34 before taking one more shot coming home.
‘I putted well and every time I hit a green I felt like I was going to hole a putt. I holed a good one on the second and that just kind of starts the momentum. After that you start to think, I can keep holing stuff.
‘The back nine for me was very scrappy, wasn’t my normal kind of steady. I hit some really poor shots but then putted well, and when you’re putting well it kind of covers up all the mistakes you made to get to the green.
‘I thought that somebody would come in with a lower score, because the course was so good that I thought probably a 66, 67 was needed. But obviously delighted to see 69 won it.’
Blondel added that his score was helped by playing alongside Rutledge when he was going well, too.
‘You don’t get into match-play mode until with a few holes coming in.
‘I knew Dale was a couple under. I just birdied 13 and 14 to go two under, then I dropped a couple, but I knew standing on 17 tee that he was a couple ahead of me.
‘I knew I needed to make at least one birdie and try and birdie the last.
‘So you’re not necessarily looking at everybody, but you’re trying to get a good score and you know somebody you’re playing with is going well, so you got to try and beat them first of all really.’
The quartet of Darren Ogier, Ian Champion, Paul Le Gallez and Jez Kaill won Friday’s Appleby L’Ancresse Men’s Team Open on countback after accumulating an impressive 94 points.
On the same day, former Island champion Steve Mahy made his fourth hole-in-one as he aced the 18th in with a nine iron.
You need to be logged in to comment. If you had an account on our previous site, you can migrate your old account and comment profile to this site by visiting this page and entering the email address for your old account. We'll then send you an email with a link to follow to complete the process.