Captain Kitchen set for a pizza the action in Italian final

An amateur who only took up golf seriously when he retired, is heading to Italy for the final of the SkyCaddie PGA Pro-Captain Challenge.

Old Fold Manor Golf Club captain, Phil Kitchen, teamed up with PGA professional Glen Portelli to win the South qualifying event at Royal Ascot Golf Club.

They amassed 45 points in the Stableford format event to finish three ahead of Coventry-based duo, Stoneleigh Deer Park Golf Club PGA pro Robert Hunter and his amateur partner Johnny Reay.

As a result they will compete in the final at the Agentario Golf Resort, Porto Ercole, in October.

The Barnet pairing made a strong start, but there was little doubt they would be topping the leaderboard when they signed off with a nett eagle.

“Glen and I worked on the basis that if I could give him four or five nett birdies,” explained Kitchen, who plays off 14.

“Glen did hand over some holes to me and said ‘It’s down to you’. That’s the way we approached it.

“But the 18th hole was a bonus frankly - it was absolutely perfect.

“And when we saw our final score, we pretty much knew we had it in the bag.

“The prize for the winners is very special, from my own point of view, I see Glen as an experienced professional who can go and win anything.

“I play in these events and hope ‘today’s the day’. It’s always a pleasure to play with him.”

Kitchen has been a member at Old Fold Manor for around six years and is making the most of his retirement after a career in retail.

“That’s when I really started to play golf in all honesty, Old Fold Manor is my first club,” he said.

“Before that, I’d played cricket but packed up in my 40s, I played golf on an ad-hoc basis.

“But, when I retired, I took up golf and joined a club, which was something I’d never done before.”

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