HUFTON SEEKS TO ADD McGREGOR TROPHY TO HIS REID CROWN

Sam Hufton will be attempting to add the English Boys Under-16 Stroke Play Championship to the Under-14 crown he won last August when the event is played at Radcliffe-on-Trent, Nottingham, on 4-6 July.

Hufton, from the Copt Heath Club in Warwickshire, lifted the Under-14 Championship for the Reid Trophy with a 36-hole aggregate of 148, four over par, at Longcliffe, Leicester. He also collected the Golf Foundation Under-14 Age Group title in a highly successful summer.

Now he bids to win the England Under-16 Championship for the McGregor Trophy against many of those he pipped last August.

Ben Evans (East Sussex National), who finished two strokes behind Hufton at Longcliffe, is also in the field and will be hoping for better preparation than he had a year ago. Then, the Millfield School pupil was recovering from a broken leg sustained while high jumping.

In fact, most of the leading dozen in last year's Reid Trophy will be in the McGregor field such as Castle Eden's Tom Maddison and John Haugh (Salisbury and South Wilts), who shared third place at Longcliffe.

Mark Coppell (Woodcote Park), son of former England soccer international Steve Coppell, joint seventh last August, is also competing, as is Gary Boyd (Cherwell Edge), shock winner of the EGU Gold Medal at Woodhall Spa in 1998 at the age of 11.

Daniel Dunn (Harrogate), winner of the Reid Trophy in 1999, is another likely to challenge, as are Michael Pearson (Blankney) and David Collinson (Hesketh), joint runners-up to Dunn, while the 132-strong field also includes another Harrogate youngster, the highly promising John Parry.

There is less of an overseas challenge this year but players from Italy and Wales are also in the field, while the quartet who will represent England in the Under-16 international against Italy in the curtain-raiser to the McGregor on 3 July, Matthew Baldwin (Hesketh), Nic Griffin (Haywards Heath), Paul Waring (Bromborough) and James Ruth (Tavistock), are also competing,

The McGregor returns to its traditional home at Radcliffe-on-Trent this year after visiting Fairhaven in Lancashire and Woodbury Park, Devon, in the past two years.

A total of 196 entries were received, 29 more than last year, but those with handicaps of seven and above were balloted out. A glance at the names of past winners of the McGregor show that several have gone on to greater things, such as Jim Payne, winner in 1986 and '87, Steve Webster in 1992, and Justin Rose in 1995.