Halifax golfer Whitworth ends 12 year wait to win 20th title and hits 20th hole in one

Adding further mathematical symmetry is the fact that he ended a 12-year wait for his 20th club championship success having also had 12 runner-up finishes in total in the event.

Whitworth, who was a scratch golfer at 16 and still plays off that mark, having been as low as plus 2.3 in his prime, added to his already legendary status at club and union level by carding 70, 75.

He admitted that he thought the 20th win that he craved so much might be beyond him, particularly after losing out on the title on a second-round countback four years ago.

But the former Yorkshire county player, who only lost four singles encounters in 35 appearances for the White Rose, got to the mark on Father’s Day and his immediate thoughts were of his dad, Jim.

“My dad passed away in 2016. He used to take me everywhere, he used to drive miles and miles for my golf.

“I don’t know if Scratch Cup has ever fallen on Father’s Day before.

But,” he reflected with a glance skywards, “I just wondered. You never know, do you?”

Whitworth has won a record 11 Halifax-Huddersfield Union match play titles as well as two union stroke play championships, two seniors stroke play crowns and four scratch inter-club foursomes titles, one of the latter in tandem with Neil Wilson, son of World Cup-winning footballer Ray Wilson.

He led this year’s Scratch Cup with an opening 70 and concedes that both fatigue and self-inflicted pressure played their parts in his adding five shots to his score in the afternoon.

“I’ve been wanting that 20th win for so long, for 12 years, and as time goes on you don’t think it’s ever going to come,” he said. “So I just said to myself, ‘go out and play as best as you can.

“Take each shot as it comes and see how it goes. If you win, great, if you don’t, que será, será’.”

His competitors included the likes of former union stroke play champion Sam Bridges and Chris Lander, a back-to-back winner of the union match play title in 2015-2016, but Whitworth – who is into his 50th year as a member at Bradley Hall – managed to keep the field at bay by three strokes.

“When I came off the 18th green there was a lad stood on the patio and I asked, ‘What have I got to do?’ and he said, ‘What have you done?’ I told him 75 and he said, ‘Yeah, that will do’.”

According to playing partner Mick Appleyard, Whitworth - who won his first Scratch Cup in 1984 and claimed 13 victories in a row from 1986 - became uncharacteristically animated, indulging in a few celebratory fist pumps.

“I’ve wanted it for so long and it was just a release,” said the man who, in 1995, was made an honorary life member of Bradley Hall in recognition of his achievements, which at that stage included a ‘mere’ 10 club championship victories. “I didn’t think it would happen, it gets harder with time.

His 20th ace, and his first in competition, came at the club’s 117-yard second hole and he applied further gloss to his magnificent month with the second albatross of his career, at the 480-yard 16th.