Burden fully aware of the extra pressures
Toby Burden is fully aware of the extra pressures of playing the county championship on his home course at Hayling.
He did, after all, lose the final at Hayilng in 2006 when he was a greenkeeper at the club. Back then, he was up at the crack of dawn preparing the course before playing 36 holes and understandably running out of steam as Stuart Archibald claimed the trophy.
So preparation is doubly important for the defending champion, who turned pro in 2010 after helping
Hampshire reach the
English County Finals with a 20-shot victory over Essex.
Ahead of this year’s event at Hayling, starting tomorrow, Burden said: ‘To have even the opportunity to defend the county championship is a real honour.
‘To have that honour at my home course is something special. I know my game, I know the course well enough that I feel a real sense of calm, to me that’s a real good mindset to be in.
‘My lessons with my coach Kev Flynn about owning my game – and the way I plot myself around a golf course – helped me so much with different decisions I make on the course, probably without me knowing it at first.
‘He’s a real coach – he knows his players technically but understanding and influencing the way we think is a real art.
‘Kev takes a lot of credit for last year’s win and the way I have been playing generally.’
Burden went on to become the first Hampshire player to win the English County
Champion of Champions event last September.
Victory at Oxfordshire’s Frilford Heath saw Burden join the likes of Lee Westwood and Tommy Fleetwood as a winner of the England Golf championship.
Four-time Hampshire,
Isle of Wight and Channel Islands Amateur champion Brian Winteridge was the last player to defend the Sloane-Stanley.
He won the trophy four times between 1975 and 1982 before moving to Devon. Sadly he passed away last week.