THE Herefordshire Golf Club member Michael Bayliss beat competition from across the Midlands and South Wales to clinch the biggest win of his career in the second annual Raven Scratch Open.

The course set up from Jeremy Browne and his team was fair but challenging, with perfect putting surfaces combined with a few tricky pin placements making for unusually high scoring for the 47 competitors.

Bayliss was part of the first grouping of the day and carded a solid 74 gross, making the most of the freshly cut greens to post a marker for the rest of the field.

Throughout the day, many of the later starters threatened to better that score but the blustery winds made for a tough finish and one by one they fell away leaving Bayliss, a six handicapper, to secure the biggest win of his career to date.

The win secured him a cut crystal trophy, the £250 first prize and the bragging rights amongst his peers for the next 12 months.

Afterwards Bayliss said that he thought he might be a couple of shots short, even for the net prize, when he finished, so he was shocked when it proved to be good enough for the main prize.

There was a four way tie for second place on seven over with Graham McMonagle, from Southerndown GC, taking second spot and Tom Mansell, from The Herefordshire Golf Club, in third, both on card countback.

In conjunction with the Gross prize, a net competition was also played. First prize went to local member Rob Waring with a net 70, winning by one from Burghill Valley’s John McQuillan with a 71.

Competition organiser Jonathan Devereux said that the target for the event is to gain Shropshire & Herefordshire Union of Golf Clubs accreditation in order to add more gravitas to both golf locally and also to the county set up.