Hewitt at his best in Formby

LEIGH Golf Club amateur Steven Hewitt teamed up with former PGA Cup player Andrew Baguley to play his best golf of the year to record an impressive victory at the Lombard Trophy regional final at Formby.

Hewitt partnered head pro Baguley as they decimated the rest of the field with a 12 under par round of 60 to win by five shots ahead of Matthew Davies and Daniel Gibbon (Vale of Llangollen Golf Club).

The duo will now play in the £41,500 grand final which is supported by Coca Cola and is being staged at beautiful Pestana Golf Resort in Vila Sol from September 22-23.

And for Hewitt, a 26-year-old business development manager from Culcheth in Cheshire, it brought back some happy memories.

“I asked Andrew if he remembered the last time we’d played together, and he was puzzled at first. But it was nine years ago in a pro-am when I was 15 - and we won then as well,” he said.

“I told him it’d be nice to go back and make it a hat-trick in Portugal.

“But I was over the moon with the victory, my putter was on fire! It was the best golf I’d played all season. I’d been working on my short game this year.”

Five handicapper Hewitt cannot explain why he and Baguley were so far out in front.

“I honestly don’t have an answer for that, but I tend not to leave much out on the course that’s what happened,” he said.

“I got five birdies in a row and and there were two nett eagles, Andrew got three in a row on the back nine. It was unreal.”

Baguley, who was a member of the victorious 2005 Great Britain & Ireland PGA Cup team, will be returning to the final for the first time in 21 years when the event was played in San Lorenzo.

“I’ve been there before and it’ll be great to be back, I won the qualifier at Hesketh that year,” he said.

“Myself and Steven knitted together really well and I honestly don’t think we could’ve done any better than we did.

“We finished early in the day but we said that if anyone could beat us then good luck”.