Life's a beach for Nessling and Davis

Colton Davis (left) with Paul Nessling.

Neighbours Paul Nessling and Colton Davis paired up for the first time in the Golfbreaks.com PGA Fourball Championship to win the South qualifying event.

The Cooden Beach Golf Club duo put together an impressive finish to card an 11 under par round of 59 at Surbiton Golf Club.

But it was a closely run contest as they won by one shot ahead of Max Brackley (Manston Golf Centre) and Benn Barham (Pentland Golf).

They were among the 10 pairs from the event who now go forward to the £33,000, BMW supported, PGA Fourball Championship Final which takes place at Whittlebury Park in Northamptonshire between August 16-18.

Nessling admitted their final score could have been even better had he not missed a six foot putt for yet another birdie at the 18th hole.

The Bexhill-on-Sea based duo claimed eight birdies and an eagle over the final 12 holes to post their sub-60 score at the Surrey venue.

Nessling has played in one Fourball Championship Final but missed the cut - while Colton qualified as a PGA professional this year.

“Once we got to eight or nine under par, we said: ‘Can we shoot 59’ - and we did, then I had a six foot putt - a pretty easy one - for 58 but I missed it,” he said.

“It’d have been a great way to finish but making 59 was good. The key to it was not making any bogeys, if you can keep those off your card then you’re laughing. On the back nine we were really flying along.”

Nessling hopes the fact that he and Colton know each other well can count in the Sussex pair’s favour at the Whittlebury Park showpiece.

“We’ve been mates for years, so we just enjoy it, it flows along nicely, but we’ve never played before in this competition,” he said.

“But we only live around the corner from each other, so we go way back, we’ve played different things before, but we decided to have a go at this one. It works better if you get on as friends.”