Union’s hat-trick of trophies is the perfect gift to Greaves
If Frank Greaves does carry through with his tentative plan to stand down as Halifax-Huddersfield team manager, his players have presented him with all three Yorkshire Inter-District Union trophies he craved as going-away gifts.
Having retained their league title a week earlier, Halifax-Huddersfield startled Greaves and everyone else at Crosland Heath where they won the team championship by an astonishing 34 strokes from runners-up Teesside.
For good measure the Leeds & District Union Trophy, awarded to the player with the best individual 36-hole aggregate, remained in their hands with Dylan Shaw-Radford reversing last year's outcome as he triumphed just ahead of 2024 victor and Huddersfield clubmate Habib Khan.
The curtain came down on the 2025 YIDU season amid wild, wet and windy conditions in a championship in which each six-man team discards its worst round in both morning and afternoon sessions.
Greaves's charges finished at -12 with seven of their 10 counting rounds under par; the 42 players representing the other seven unions had just five between them.
Shaw-Radford (69 66) and Khan (69 68) bettered par by a dozen strokes between them and received superb support from home trio George Hanson (74 68), Josh McAspurn (67 80) and Joel Rushworth (72 77) plus first-round leader James Skirrow (66 76), of Huddersfield.
Greaves's phenomenal voluntary commitments to golf extend beyond the union, including, but not restricted to, his role as Director of the Green at home club Huddersfield, and assisting with Yorkshire's youth set-up.
He reflected: “Nine years, eight seasons, 56 matches, 62 players used throughout those years. Three league titles, two runners-up. If this is to be goodbye, then I would like to say some thank-yous.
“To you, John [Turner, Teams and Coaching], thank you. You shared a focus, you have provided me with wise counsel and understanding.
“To those 62 players, you have shown focus, commitment, skill, belief; you’ve excited me, bewildered me, frustrated me; and it’s been an absolute pleasure to lead you.”
He added: “My last thank you is to three people who don’t play golf and have no interest whatsoever; my wife Helen and my two wonderful kids, Joshua and Megan. Without their acceptance of my aspirations, I wouldn’t be here. It was an absolute blast. Thank you.”
Within hours of Halifax-Huddersfield's victory in the 50th YIDU team championship, their only other win came 40 years earlier, players on the squad's WhatsApp group were already questioning whether Greaves really would walk away from the most successful period in the union's history after he teasingly responded to one player's urgings to make it three league wins in succession next year by commenting: “Already planning.”