BIGGA and best - that's a title earned by the go-getting green-keeping team at Fulford Golf Club.

The club, which celebrates its centenary in 2006, has won the British and International Golf Greenkeepers Association (BIGGA) environmental award for the north region.

It is the first time the club has won the award. A plaque and a £500 cheque will be presented at BIGGA's annual conference in Harrogate next month.

Said Mark Mennell (pictured right), head green-keeper for the last 14 years at Fulford: "It's good to be judged the best environmental course in the North, but now all the lads and our chairman of greens, Ian Snowdon, want to win the national award."

The green-keeping staff were saluted by Fulford general manager Linda Gurnell, who said: "They fully deserve recognition for all the hard work they have put into the ecological programme in the last few years."

Golf courses were visited by judges from the Sports Turf Research Institute at Bingley and examined in several categories including nature conservation, landscape and cultural heritage, water resource management and public access and awareness.

Ganton GC professional Gary Brown had to be keenly aware of a race against the clock before he finally prevailed in the second event in the Mansell Finishes winter pro-am series at Dunham Forest.

Brown was delayed in a traffic jam on the M62 and only reached the Cheshire-based course with less than 30 minutes in hand.

But Brown, winner of the coveted Lombard Trophy this year, showed no signs of travel fatigue. He posted five birdies in a three-under-par 69 which left him one shot ahead of his nearest challengers - Craig Corrigan (Haigh Hall), Simon Edwards (Wrexham), Paul Carman (Huddersfield), and David Shacklady (Mossock Hall).

Updated: 10:15 Saturday, November 27, 2004