The 2024 Surrey Amateur Masters and Surrey Junior Masters were both held on the same date and venue, the same as we did in 2023. This year, both events were played over the New Course at Walton Heath Golf Club on Sunday 20th October.
In the Junior Masters, the field was made up of the top four players in both the Scratch and Handicap Junior Order of Merits, as well as the winners of this year’s Surrey Junior Championships.
Unfortunately, the weather on the day was horrendous, making for very difficult scoring conditions. Players were greeted with heavy rain and winds gusting up to 40mph, not what you wish for when playing at Walton Heath! Despite the wind and rain, the golf course was in very good condition, especially the greens.
The New Course at Walton Heath is a difficult course and can be very penal if you stray offline into the heather, which was easy to do given the strong winds! Despite this, there were some fantastic scores returned from the juniors – in fact, even better than the scores in the Men’s Amateur Masters, which was being played concurrently.
The standout performance on the day was from Aaron Moody, who has been in great form recently. Aaron shot a score of 69 (-3), finishing off his round with three straight birdies to post an absolutely superb total, especially given the awful weather conditions!
Aaron’s score of 69 was three strokes better than the lowest score in the Men’s Masters, which just highlights how good of a round it was.
Aaron's score was enough to secure him the 2024 Junior Masters title by 5 strokes, ahead of runner up Josh Thompson. It also gave him a resounding victory in the Scratch Junior Order of Merit, an event which he had in fact already wrapped up before the Junior Masters took place. He finished the season with 57 Order of Merit points, just 3 points shy of the maximum available 60 points, a fantastic achievement which summed up a great season!
Perhaps slightly more unexpectedly, Aaron's nett score in the Junior Masters earned him the maximum 10 Handicap Order of Merit points, which was enough to see him leapfrog Ethan Kwan and take the 2024 Handicap Order of Merit, to go with his victories in the Junior Masters and the Scratch Junior Order of Merit.
This meant that Aaron had won all three trophies available on the day, the first time that this has ever been done, so many congratulations to Aaron on his very impressive achievement!
Once all scores had been returned and the final Order of Merit points had been summed up, the top three players in the Junior Masters and both Junior Order of Merits were confirmed as follows:
Surrey Junior Masters:
1st: Aaron Moody – 69 (-3)
2nd: Josh Thompson - 74 (+2)
3rd: James Bradnum - 76 (+4)
Scratch Junior Order of Merit:
1st: Aaron Moody – 57 points
2nd: Harry Weatherhead – 24 points
3rd: Harry Hall – 21 points
Handicap Junior Order of Merit:
1st: Aaron Moody – 24 points
2nd: Ethan Kwan – 22 points
3rd: Leo Hiller – 21 points
A massive thank you to Walton Heath Golf Club for hosting this event, we really appreciate the club hosting us and all their staff for being so helpful and welcoming towards us.