Sport | Sailing
Whitnell and Watson win Daily Telegraph Junior event
Dale Whitnell and Sally Watson won their first Daily Telegraph Junior Championship crowns after superb final rounds at the Dubai Creek Golf and Yacht Club.
- Staff Report
- Published: 00:00 October 18, 2006
Dubai: Dale Whitnell and Sally Watson won their first Daily Telegraph Junior Championship crowns after superb final rounds at the Dubai Creek Golf and Yacht Club.
Whitnell, 18, from Essex, conjured up an amateur record equalling 68, three under par, to see off twin challenges in the shape of Daniel Casey, who had led by a shot going into yesterday's play, and England boys' captain Sam Hutsby.
Greenside hazards
As his rivals flirted with the greenside hazards, Whitnell sank an eight-footer on the last to win in some style by six.
Scotland's Watson, meanwhile, extended her overnight lead from four strokes to 10, decimating what was, in theory anyway, an equally competitive field.
Only 15 and already a resident of the David Leadbetter Academy in Florida, she clearly has quite a future.
The pair join a clutch of former winners who have gone on to prosper, like Justin Rose, who became a Telegraph champion just months before chipping in at Royal Birkdale during the 1998 Open.
Mhairi McKay, the girls' winner in 1991, has twice represented Europe in the Solheim Cup, while Rebecca Hudson, who collected a hat-trick of junior victories, secured her maiden Ladies European Tour title in July.
Some 40,000 juniors competed throughout the summer for the right to make the 21-strong field for the 2006 final and by the third round yesterday, the boys' contest had come down to a three-man race.
However, Hutsby, who, like Whitnell, had started the day trailing Casey by one, immediately made his task more difficult with bogeys at the second and third.
Casey, though, was holding his own before a moment of carelessness put him in the sand at the eighth, resulting in a bogey four.
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