Boyce Hill Ladies have reached the seventh round of the prestigious Mail on Sunday Golf Club Classic -- the biggest club team championship in the world.

They have been crowned Essex champions after following a first-round bye with wins over Orsett, Thorpe Bay, Three Rivers, Warley Park and Chelmsford.

Of those fixtures two were away from home and both had thrilling finales, with Maria Barham at Thorpe Hall and Melanie Perrin at Warley Park clinching victories in extra-hole play-offs.

Boyce Hill usually only make it as far as the first or second round, but the team of Perrin, Barham, Jackie Soilleux, Chris Noden, Sue Kaye and Jenny Darwin -- which is captained by non-playing Jean Shepherd -- is flying this year.

They play Kent club Littlestone on Saturday, August 16 to fight for a place in the last 32 of a competition that had a record-breaking entry of 3,019 teams in its tenth year.

Victory there and in the subsequent round will put them in the quarter-finals in October and within striking distance of the November grand final at the Spanish course at Oliva Nova which was designed by Seve Ballesteros.

Published Thursday, July 31, 2003

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