Junior Golf at Somerset's Taunton & Pickeridge Golf Club
On Saturday 22nd March 2025 Junior captain Freddie took to the first tee alongside the club captain, Ladies captain and Seniors captain to take part in the Captains Drive In.
The club was extremely busy with a double shotgun start Texas scramble with 23 teams teeing off at 8am and a further 23 teams teeing off at 1pm. Fantastic day and perfect weather.
Over the long hard winter months our Juniors have enjoyed some fun 9 and 12 hole formats such as 4 ball better ball, Texas Scrambles and most recently a game of cheat against some naughty cheating adults. We have also had 2 fantastic training events hosted by Head PGA pro Jason Avery and Assistant PGA Pro Ali Williams, both of which were very different but extremely helpful in preparing everyone for the new season of golf.
Saturday 16th November was the date to celebrate this year’s trophy and award winners at the Club Presentation Evening. As well as recognising the winners we also announced the 2025 Junior Captain and Vice Captain. We are delighted that Freddie Jarrett has accepted the post of Junior Captain and Lewis Walters the post of Vice Captain. A big shout out and thank you to Alfie Sully for doing such a wonderful job as JC in 2024!
Here are the 2024 winners: from Top Left
Ben Newman, George Hutchings, Cooper Baker, Megan O’Neill, Freddie Jarrett, Alexander Hingley, Jamie Ryder, Zac Janes & Paul Thorogood
We are in the South Division of Somerset Juniors Golf and on Sat 28th Sept it was the 3rd and final league match of the season. Wheathill GC were hosting and our team of 5 Juniors played individual stableford format against juniors from Long Sutton, Yeovil and Wheathill. Going into this match Wheathill were leading the results table on 26 points with T&P a close 2nd on 25 points. Despite scoring really well in Cat 1 division, (HI upto 18.4) with 10 points out of a possible 16 and picking up another point in Cat 2 ( HI 18.5-36.4) it was Wheathill who were victorious on the day scoring 12 points across all 3 categories and winning the South Division with 38 points against our 35. They go on to play against the winners of the North Division – Burnham & Berrow – to determine the overall league winners for 2024.
A big thank you to all our T&P juniors who have volunteered to play in this season’s matches.
Here is the team who played at Wheathill:
From L_R Jack Legg, Seb Childs, Jamie Ryder, Alfie Sully, Freddie Jarrett
On Sun 22nd Sept we went to Exeter GC with a team of 6 Juniors to play in a South West Qualifier for the annual Junior Team Golf Home Nations Championship against Saunton GC. Several regional qualifiers have been taking place at different venues with the winners of each qualifying event going forward to play in the South West regional Final, held this year at Royal North Devon GC. We won our qualifier against Saunton and took the team to Royal North Devon on the cold blustery day of Sunday 13th Oct. There were some amazing scores posted in the final and it was Wrag Barn’s team who won, with Burnham & Berrow coming 2nd. These two clubs will now play in the England Final at Crowborough Beacon in Kent at the end of October. The England winners will face the Welsh, Irish and Scottish winners in the Home Nations Final in early Spring 2025.
Here is the T&P team who did us proud in the Southwest matches.
from L_R Thomas Gendall, Morgan Couch, George Hutchings, Finley Pyke, Ben Newman, Alfie Sully
Well the Junior Season at T&P is very nearly over and we managed to run all the trophy competitions this Summer on Monday Club nights. Nobody can say we have had an amazing Summer of weather but it was good enough to only have 1 club night cancelled due to rain/ storms. The winners of the various trophies are detailed below. Well done to them and better luck next year to those who came close to winning. No two days of golf are ever the same!
Presidents Cup – Cooper Baker
George Small Cup – George Hutchings
Somerset Cars Shield – Finley Pyke
Trendle Cup – Freddie Jarrett
Tony Churchill Memorial Shield – Alexander Hingley
Kaygwyn Trophy – Cooper Baker
Matthew Trott Trophy – Zac Janes & Paul Thorogood
Andrew Hayes Trophy, Best T&P Gross Score at Junior Open – Ben Newman
Junior Open Gross Winner – Ben Newman
Earlham Trophy, Junior Club Championship Gross – Ben Newman
Junior Club Championship Nett Winner – George Hutchings
Walker Cup, Juniors v Seniors BB matchplay – Juniors win
We have one league match in Somerset South Division still to play and a regional qualifier for the Junior Team Golf Home Nations Championship. Both of these are in late September.
The annual Walker Cup match between the Junior and Senior Sections at T&P took place on Monday 5th August in dry, breezy and, often, sunny conditions. There were 8 in each team this year going out and playing pairs Better Ball matchplay in 4 tee times. Each section fielded a strong team with the results reflecting this. The Seniors would have been looking to reverse the 2023 result by winning the cup back from the Junior section and it all came down to the result of the 4th match to discover the fate of The Walker Cup. In the end the result was a win of 2.5 to 1.5 for the Juniors. Well done team!
Mike Robinson, Club Captain 2024, made the presentation and the Seniors kindly bought the Juniors a drink after the matches came in. Here are photos of the 4 groups who competed and team photos of all the players and the winning Junior Team.
The 32nd Charity Pro-Am day took place on Friday 12th July in cloudy but dry conditions. This year the Captains’ charity is Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance and lots of money was raised through raffles and a cake/ snack stall for the charity.
The Junior Team this time year was composed of Freddie Jarrett, George Hutchings and Joe Tutcher. These three juniors won a place on the team by having the highest aggregate scores from our 3 pro-am qualifying stableford competitions held earlier in the season. They played with a PGA Professional, Sam Scrivens from The Mendip GC.
The competition is a team stableford format with the 2 highest scores on each hole to count. There are prizes for the top few teams with the highest scores and separate prizes for the top placed professionals. In addition there were spot prizes for nearest the pin on several of the holes. Refreshments were on offer at points on the course and players enjoyed a breakfast bap and drink before playing and a 2 course meal afterwards. It is a great day out all in all!
There were members running the cake stall by the 9th tee and others acting as ball spotters in various places on the course. The course looked amazing and credit must go to Jon Cary and his team for preparing it so well, not only for yesterday but throughout the season so far. Thanks also to the Pro-Am committee for the superb organisation of the day.
Here are the juniors on the 1st tee with their PGA Professional.
The Jamboree was held on Sunday 7th July at Burnham & Berrow GC. There were 7 clubs represented, each fielding a team of 4 juniors to play in an individual stableford competition with the best 3 scores from each team being added up to produce a final total. We had teams from B&B, T&P, Long Sutton, Worlebury, The Mendip, Wheathill and Wells. The competition was played on the Channel Course playing the 9 holes twice from different tees for the front and back 9. Conditions were quite challenging with a heavy shower of rain and a brisk wind, not forgetting the narrow fairways and brutal rough of the course! Many a golf ball was lost that day.
The winners were Burnham & Berrow with a team total of 96 and The Mendip came 2nd with 93. Full results will be published on the Somerset Junior Golf website in the near future.
Many thanks to our team of Alfie Sully, George Hutchings, Seb Childs and Jack Legg and to their parents for ball spotting on the day – perhaps as difficult as playing!
Here are the team posing by the notice for the 2025 British Open Qualifier to be held at B&B.
The Junior Section at T&P were out in force on Sunday 19th May in 2 separate competitions.
At Yeovil we were competing in the 2nd league match of the Somerset Junior Golf South Division against Wheathill, Long Sutton and Yeovil. There are 3 categories – HI up to 18.4, 18.5-36.4 and 36.5 – 54. The juniors play in a qualifying individual stableford format and points are awarded to the players with the top 5 scores. We had Archie Austin competing in Cat 1, George Hutchings and Freddie Jarrett in Cat 2 and Cooper Baker in Cat 3. They all played their hearts out and we came away with 15 points to put us 2nd in the league at the moment, 1 point behind Wheathill. Here is George being presented with his memento for coming 1st in Cat 2.
2 other teams of T&P juniors were at Saltford GC the same day competing in the Somerset Junior Club Team Championships and also their Junior Open. Alfie Sully, Ben Newman, Morgan Couch, Thomas Gendall, Finley Pyke and Seb Childs made up the 2 teams of three with the best 2 stableford scores in each team counting. T&P were not placed in the team event but in the Junior Open, which ran simultaneously, both Finley and Ben scored 78 gross and ended up 1st and 2nd respectively on countback in the Gross competition which was a fantastic result. Here are the boys being presented with their awards. Well done!
