Onions and Waghorn seal 'special' win

STOKE on Trent amateur Martin Waghorn won a ‘memorable’ Lombard Trophy qualifier at Little Aston Golf Club.

Waghorn partnered Wolstanton Golf Club professional Nigel Onions whose father had died just three days earlier.

The pair battled bad weather to post a seven under par round of 65 to win by one shot ahead of a three-way tie for second place.

Nottinghamshire pairings Robert Macey and Daniel Mellors (Norwood Park Golf Course), Michael Bradley and Richard Aldread (Notts Golf Club) and Martyn Brown and Andy Wheeler (Oakmere Park Golf Club) just missed out on the final which will be held in Portugal.

But Onions played on despite his loss at the weekend.

“It meant the win was a more memorable one for Nigel,” said Waghorn, from Forsbrook, near Stoke.

“The win was special because I’d lost my dad on the Saturday, and it cheered my mum up after what had happened,” said Onions.

But the duo were not even meant to be playing on this day.

They had originally entered the qualifying event at Enville Golf Club in Stourbridge which is being held at the end of July.

But Waghorn’s sister is getting married in France at the same time so the Staffordshire pairing switched to the Sutton Coldfield venue.

They will now play in the £41,000 Algarve grand final taking place at the Vila Sol resort between September 21-22.

“It’s all a bit surreal really, it hasn’t sunk in,” said Waghorn, a 35-year-old chef who plays off a handicap of 13.

“Everything seemed to happen for a reason.

“I’ve been at Wolstanton for eight years now and this was the first time I’ve played with Nigel.

‘It was a very eventful day, we seemed to have four seasons in the space of about 20 minutes. There were massive showers, hail, sunshine and wind - and we had the better of it.

“Before we started, we spoke to one lad and he was happy with one under par due to the weather.

“The back nine won it for us. It worked out well, it was an amazing day,”

Onions admitted the timing of their round was ideal after a one hour weather delay.

“I’ve entered this event for the last five years and never got close, I thought we’d have the best of the weather and we did, we started around 2pm,” he said.

“And we didn’t get any rain until the back nine. But we were only two under par at the turn, then we went on a run. Some of the other players said it was brutal out there.”

For more information or to see the full results from the Lombard Trophy PGA Regional Final at Little Aston Golf Club click here