The Boys Amateur golf championships are being played on the Wirral this week, with my club Wallasey featuring on the first two days before the top 64 players then go into the knock-out stage at Royal Liverpool ( Hoylake).
I volunteered to be a marshal, so have watched the cream of European U18 golfers strutting their stuff for a couple of days. There were two Americans in the field but otherwise it was dominated by Brits, Italians, Germans, French and Spanish.
The weather on day 1 was wild, but that did not stop a few players beating par with 5 under being the clubhouse leader. The course standard scratch (CSS) at Wallasey was 76 which is 4 over par, so the leader actually was 9 under in real terms. The CSS at The Royal was 77.
Day two saw conditions more favourable with the CSS reduced to 74 at Wallasey, and it gave me the chance to see the new wonderkid on the block, the German Dominic Foos.
Dominic is just 16 and has a handicap of +6. For non-golfers reading this that means he should play courses in six shots less than the par for the course. He is already being courted by American colleges for a 2016 start, he has his own web-site, and a monogram designed on his initials DF, much like Tiger Woods does.
The question is though, is he really that good? Well frankly yes he is, but he is not commanding the European boys arena uncontested.
He played his stroke play rounds with Bradley Moore and Connor Syme and all three of them qualified for the knock-out stage due, in no small part to playing holes 13 & 14 in a combined total of 10 under par. Connor lost in the last 32 but Dominic and Bradley have made it through to the last 16.
Dominic was 3 holes down against Harry Ellis, the English Amateur champion, but won 5 holes on the bounce to triumph 3 & 2. With good French, Italian, Spanish, Belgium and British players still left in the competition, the final couple of days are going to be riveting. You can follow it all here, but remember you heard his name here first!!
