ROBERT Harding, an 86-year-old member of The York Golf Club, won the Lawrence Batley Over 80s golf tournament at Moortown to maintain a remarkable record in the event.

Harding won in 1996 with 40 stableford points and a year later carried off the trophy again with 39.

He was equal second in 1998 with 38 points and equal first last year with 40, although eventually receiving the runners-up prize on a countback over the last nine.

This year, however, he made no mistake as he completed a hat-trick of over-80s successes as he scored 39 points to win by two in a field of almost 50 competitors on the testing Leeds course.

"I played well on the outward half and scored 22 points, but not so well coming back when I had 17," said Harding, a well-known sportsman in the York area for many years.

He was a teacher at St Peter's School from 1938 to 1974, being house master at Grove House and also head of physical education.

He had a handicap of two at his best and played at Sundridge Park, Kent, near his birth place, and Cromer before coming to York.

David Hickes, a former Evening Press photographer, won the Brittany Ferries Northern Journalists photographers' section annual golf championship at Wetherby with 39 stableford points.

Hickes, who now runs an agency in Leeds, earned a three-day all expenses paid golf trip to Brittany given by the sponsors.

Wetherby freelance golf writer John Lelean, a former captain and green committee chairman on his home course, took first prize of a similar Brittany Ferries golf holiday with 40 points in the journalists' section.

Picture - HAT-TRICK COMPLETED: Robert Harding celebrates yet another success in the Lawrence Batley tournament