THE Bolton Golf Association has battled Covid-19 restrictions to play its major competitions to a conclusion.

Despite the difficulties surrounding the coronavirus pandemic, the BGA has been able to hand out trophies to the best the town, and the wider area, has to offer.

Gareth Hastie won his seventh Bolton Golf Championship, this year held at Horwich Golf Club for the first time in the 125-year-old club’s history.

The championship has never been played on a nine-hole course, before the club’s request to the BGA executive for them to act as hosts.

The pandemic meant the competition was reduced to 36 holes of strokeplay over two days of competition with more than 50 of Bolton’s top golfers in action.

Bolton Golf Club’s Hastie took the title by two shots after seeing off competition from Horwich’s Ronnie Frankland.

Frankland led after the first round with a level par 67 with Hastie then overhauling him with a one under par 66 for his second 18 holes. This year’s BGA league has been won by Chorley who picked up the Bailey Trophy with a hard-fought 4.5-3.5 win over Dunscar in the final at Bolton.

The 2020 running of the competition was rescheduled to a seven-week event with the league matches producing four semi-finalists.

The eventual champions, who had come top of League B, edged out Bolton, second in League A, after the match ended 4-4 and the top players from each team took part in a deciding play-off.

Jack Wiggans of Chorley won on the third extra hole against Bolton’s Liam Ball.

In the other last four tie, Hart Common, second in League B, claimed the first three matches to put them in a strong position against Dunscar, top of League A, but they rallied and won the last five matches to set up their meeting with Chorley, who ultimately came out on top.

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In other individual competitions, Tim Cooper claimed his first BGA Seniors trophy from defending champion Bill Bromilow and Peter Dobson by two shots.

The championship, hosted by Dunscar, had more than 80 players over the age of 55 competing for the trophy.

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As for the juniors, their championships took place at Horwich Golf Club.

Dunscar’s Sean Dobson won best gross with a score of 74 while his club mate Ben Kirkman won the best nett with 75-8-67.