University of Exeter golf driving forward

The University of Exeter Golf Club will be hoping to mirror this success following the arrival of three new scholars and a new Sports Performance Officer, Craig Townsend. Craig has been High Performance Golf Manager for 3 years and brings a wealth of experience to the programme following other roles with the Devon Golf Partnership and Great Britain University Golf Squad. Craig said “I’m incredibly excited about the new post and I hope I can push all sports scholars onto greater success. The Ryder cup was amazing and you can already tell the positive effect that it is having on golf at the University. There have been an influx of members to the club and the training session on Monday was very busy with players of all abilities coming to practice. We are very excited about the coming season which promises great results with the new scholars onboard.”

The three new scholars are exciting additions to the Golf Programme. Katie Bradbury has already achieved great success and established herself at international level. She has competed for the Welsh Ladies Golf Team for the last three years and was part of the winning team in the 2009 Home International competition. This summer has been particularly successful for Katie with an unbeaten record in the Home Internationals, the only player to do so, a 17^th place in the English Women’s stroke play and a 13^th place in the British Women’s Amateur.

Nick Wildman and Chris Johnson have also had equally impressive years. Nick was selected for the  Great Britain University Golf Squad which finished a record second in the World University Golf Championship this summer. Chris finished 17^th in the Ireland Closed Championships and has just returned from winning the West Cornwall Open Tournament.

The team will work closely with Craig and the University’s two performance golf coaches. Craig commented, “I am really looking forward to having Katie, Nick and Chris join the squad. They will be a great benefit to the golf programme and we are excited that the support that the High Performance Programme provides will enable them to achieve higher goals and many successes for the University. It’s a very strong squad and we’ve been working really hard in preparation for this season.”

Golf is one of the University of Exeter’s ten focus sports and has seven scholars on the books.  All scholars will take part in the British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) competition which starts on 11 October at Saunton GC, North Devon.  Home matches will be played at Dawlish Warren. The squad have been training and practising hard for the coming season at both Exminster Golf Centre and the Clifton Hill Driving Range with various skills challenges and technical improvements. The BUCS competition is run across over 150 institutions around the country, with which different sports competing to gain points for an overall ranking. The University of Exeter finished the 2011-2012 season a fantastic seventh and will be hoping to build on this achievement.

For more information about the University of Exeter golf club, or to join contact club captain James Wallace: jw388@ex.ac.uk