Freshman from Manchester wins at fourth attempt

ROOKIE HOGBEN WINS
COLLEGE TOURNAMENT
IN OKLAHOMA

Alex Hogben, a 6ft 3in freshman student from Manchester, is the toast of the University of Missouri Kansas City golf team after scoring his first win in only his fourth tournament on the American college circuit.
Alex shot rounds of 71, 71 and 69 for a five-under-par score of 211 – the third lowest score in UMKC golf programme history – in the ORU Shootout college tournament over the Broken Arrow course at Indian Springs Country Club in Oklahoma.
Hogben won by three shots from John Sutko (Creighton University) who had scores of 72, 71 and 71.
Alex, pictured right (photograph by Tom Ward), had achieved two top-10 finishes in his first three tournaments and had been named as one of the top 25 freshmen golfers on the circuit.
UMKC (875) finished only one stroke behind the winners of the team event, Oklahoma City, in a field of 12 colleges.
Scots Peter McLachlan – last year’s Scottish youths champion – and Stephen Clark, both from Glasgow, are also on golf scholarships at the University of Missouri Kansas City but did not figure in the team of five for this tournament.
As winter approaches in the state of Missouri, this is the last tournament the UMKC team will play until late February.