FOREST Park Golf Club are set to host a Yorkshire PGA event for the first time next year.

The county’s top club professionals and assistants will descend on the Stockton-on-the-Forest-based course in a new one-round tournament next summer in what is a huge boost for the 20-year-old outfit.

With the Old Foss course, 6,673 yards off the white tees, continuing to mature, club chiefs are confident the par-72 track will pose a tough test of golf.

And should the initial competition, probably scheduled for June or July, prove a success, they hope to expand it with the addition of a pro-am in later years.

Course professional Mark Winterburn, a three-time winner on the regional tour last year and a stalwart of Forest Park for eight years, said the course got the nod following a visit by the Yorkshire PGA last month.

“We had the PGA officials play the course with a view to holding a new event – trying to create a new Order of Merit competition for the Yorkshire region,” he said.

“They thoroughly enjoyed the course and it is case now of them getting the fixtures for next year, from the north region, learning of Open qualifying dates, and trying to agree a date. It’s all systems go. It will definitely happen.

“The PGA has got four events which are ranked as majors and I think this is going to add another one on to that. In those events you will usually get around 80 golfers playing in them so they are well supported and there are an awful lot of good players in the Yorkshire PGA.

“It’s an achievement that we can get an event like this.”

Winterburn added that with a 600-yard par-five and a number of tight, tree-lined holes, it would be interesting to see what scores the professionals could shoot and admitted he harboured hopes of winning his “home” event.

“We’ve never held a professional tournament and it puts the course on the map,” he said. “It is getting better and better every year. It is in brilliant condition – that’s testament to the proprietors and the money they keep putting in to the course, along with the greenkeepers.

“If you can get it round here playing to your handicap you can, more or less, play at a lot of places. It is a tough test and it will be interesting to see, when it is played by some good pros, what scores they shoot.

“If I don’t win I’ll be disappointed.”

Meanwhile, Carole Taylor was the runaway winner of Forest Park GC’s Kitty Crossley Rosebowl, four points clear of nearest challenger Maureen Varlow.

Peter Dransfield won the Old Foss Trophy with a nett 62 to beat Alistair Cummings by two shots.