THE ‘Little Masters’ junior programme at Altrincham Golf Club was a big hit in 2016 with more than 25 juniors on the books and they concluded their season with a festive day of fun and games under the guidance of coach Holly Calvert.

Calvert, a golfer with experience on the Ladies' European Tour and Access Tour, said: “We will be looking to launch the Holly Calvert Junior Golf Academy in 2017.

“I will be leading the way with junior development and we will also be looking to create a little junior course out on the 16th, 17th and 18th holes.

“I will also be doing some ‘Get back into Golf’ junior camps in the February half term and the aim is to get up to 50-plus juniors involved as I feel we have the ability and location to be able to do this.

“We are also working closely with local schools to try to boost child participation in golf as the normal view is that it can be an expensive and inaccessible sport and I want to get rid of that image.

“To get more details, people can email me on holly.calvert@traffordleisure.co.uk.”

Despite some terrible flooding in several places, Mottram Hall provided an excellent course for the annual visit of the Manchester Alliance with another full field enjoying a great competition.

Chorlton’s assistant professional Adam Hodkinson showed the form that saw him do well in the EuroPro Tour in 2016 as he topped the individual professional section, posting a superb six-under-par 42 points to finish clear of Jamie Howarth (Davenport) and Steve Parry (Hart Common), both on 39.

The pro-am section saw new names at the top of the leaderboard with Matt Dixon (High Legh Park) taking his Macclesfield partner Tom Hollingworth into the pole position with 43 points, one more than Sean Owen and Steve Brain (Bolton Old Links) and Davenport duo Jamie Howarth and Liam Candle.

There were also new names leading in the am-am section with Brian Conner and Dave Roberts (Davyhulme Park) carding a superb 46 points to finish four clear of the majestic Steve Moores and Ian Starkie (Stamford) and Marcus Corfield (William Wroe) and David Smith (Ellesmere).