Last updated at 11:36, Friday, 03 August 2012

County ace Seb Crookall-Nixon is targeting success at the English Amateur Championship at Silloth after a convincing win over fellow Cumbrian Adam Chapman.

Seb Crookall-Nixon

The 18-year-old from Papcastle, near Cockermouth, meets Harry Ellis in today’s quarter-finals.

With a considerable crowd watching his every move, Crookall-Nixon hardly put a foot wrong as he overcame Chapman 5 and 3.

“I know Adam quite well,” said Crookall-Nixon. “I’ve played county golf with him and he’s done well to get this far. But I played solid, didn’t drop a shot, had 13 pars and two birdies. I won the third with a par then Adam lost a ball on the fifth so I was gifted those two holes.”

The England boy cap won the ninth and 12th with pars to go 4-up and while they both birdied the 14th, Crookall-Nixon’s second birdie came at 15 with a 20-foot putt to settle the issue.

Ellis secured his quarter final place with a 6 and 5 win over Tom Brown, who admitted he had “run out of gas”.

“I got spanked out there and had nothing left in the tank,” he said. “I’ve never played five rounds in four days before.”

Ellis, who bogeyed the first to slip behind, soon hit back and took the lead on the fifth with a par. “After that I hit every green and was always putting for birdie,” he said.

He increased it with a 2ft birdie at six while a par at eight put him 3 up. That was when Brown began to wilt and Ellis won three of the next five holes for a comprehensive victory.

“I’m keeping my good form from last week’s Carris Trophy,” he added. “I’m playing Seb Crookall-Nixon tomorrow. I’m looking forward to it and I know all about him.”

First published at 11:28, Friday, 03 August 2012
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk