Mewse wins club championship for fourth year in row

Posted by The Journal on Jul 26, 09 12:23 PM in Sport

For a man lucky not to be killed falling 30 feet from a Corbridge dentist's roof on to his van - and who virtually turned his back on golf for 13 years - Ken Mewse is enjoying a hot streak.

The 48-year-old roofer from Hexham has won the Tynedale club championship for the fourth year in a row to qualify for The Journal Champion of Champions at De Vere Slaley Hall on September 6. Mewse learned his golf at Hexham and won their 1985 club championship. But by the time he hit his 30s, Mewse had tired of golf, and of the pain he was getting from his back. "I just got bored with it and fed up," he said. "I played a couple of times a year or so and that was it. I didn't miss it."

When he was 40, he had the work accident and says: "I blacked out as soon as I slipped off that roof in Corbridge and came round five hours later in hospital. That five hours of my life has remained a blank ever since, but the doctors told me I was lucky to have survived it."

Mewse was off work for three months with a broken left wrist, a broken nose, three cracked ribs and a bad cut to his mouth.

Four years later, he suddenly got the bug to play golf again, and it was like flicking a light switch back on despite those 13 years away from the sport. Mewse joined Tynedale in March 2006, won the club championship in July and has won it every year since.

"I don't know why, but my back has not given me any trouble since," he said. "I started enjoying my golf again straight away and I have enjoyed it ever since." Tynedale secretary Trevor Hodge said: "There are some club champions who let everybody know about how good they think they are.

"Ken Mewse is the direct opposite, he is the most modest and unassuming champion you will ever meet, a great guy."

Mewse equalled the course record, held by former Northumberland strokeplay champion Philip Waugh, on the way to his latest title. He shot 73 63 and his second round, six under par, brought him three birdies on each half of the course.

The nearest he came to conceding a bogey was at the ninth, where he sunk a 15-foot putt for his par, and on the 18th green where he splashed out of a bunker from 25 feet to 12 inches.

He said: "I didn't know at the time I got the bunker shot so close at the last that I needed to get down in two from there to tie the course record. That was a nice surprise."

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