Shanklin & Sandown Golf Club – the Island’s premier course – hosts the Hampshire, Isle of Wight and Channel Islands Amateur Championship this weekend for the first time since 2012, starting on Friday (6th June).
This is the 12th time the club have hosted the event – known as the Sloane-Stanley Challenge Cup – since 1908. Spectators are welcome on all 3 days (Friday, Saturday and Sunday) at Shanklin & Sandown GC, which starts with the 36-hole qualifier on Friday.
Entry is free and play will get underway between 08:00 and 09:00.
On Saturday, a big field will contest the Hampshire Bowl, a stableford competition that higher handicappers can also enter as well as the 56 players who will play in Friday’s qualifier.
The Island has only produced 2 winners of the Sloane-Stanley Challenge Cup over the last 86 years – J R Mellor (1939) and Jordan Sundborg (2017), both Shanklin members. But back in the 1920s, the Isle of Wight dominated the county championship thanks to the presence of Flight Lieutenant and later Squadron Leader Cecil Hayward, who was stationed on the Isle of Wight. The RAF man won the Sloane-Stanley Cup back-to-back in 1922/23 and again in 1925 and 1929.
