OLIVER CARR THROUGH TO LAST EIGHT OF BRITISH BOYS' CH/SHIP

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Burnham-on-Sea, Somerset: English International, Oliver Carr, produced some of his best golf of the week to defeat luckless Spaniard, Pablo Matesanz, and move into the quarter-finals of the Boys Amateur Championship, staged at Burnham and Berrow in Somerset.  Two rounds of match play were played today, reducing the field from 32 to just eight players.
Carr, from Heswall, who claimed five and a half points out of six during his country’s victory at last week’s Boys Home Internationals in Harlech, struggled with his long game while defeating third round opponent, Stefan Still from Germany, at the 21^st but he bounced back to form with five birdies to defeat 16-year-old Matesanz by 4 and 2. The Englishman will now face compatriot, Harrison Greenberry, from Exeter, for a place in the semi-finals after the 17-year-old Devon County player holed a brave six-foot putt to end the hopes of Bedfordshire County Under-18 champion, Matt Hill.
Carr started his match against Matesanz by winning his first two holes with birdies but the key to the result might well have been the two fine up-and-downs he made for halves on the 10^th and 11^th. They helped him to retain the initiative and he went on to seal his victory with birdies on the 13^th, 14^th and 16^th holes.
“That’s probably the best golf I have played all week,” said the delighted Carr. “I struggled this morning but I went to the range at lunchtime and something just seemed to click.
”I’m tired now but I can’t wait to get started in the morning.”
One man Carr will not have to face in the later stages is last year’s runner-up, Maximilian Rottluff, the German No. 1, who suffered a surprise defeat at the hands of his less well-known compatriot, Steffen Harm.
Harm is not a member of the German national squad but that did not stop him ending Rottluff’s challenge in a game in which he was twice two up but then had to go to the 19^th before finally overcoming the 2010 Scottish Youths champion.
He will now face another German, Jeremy Paul, from Mannheim, who ended the brave bid of 15-year-old Lincolnshire County champion, Jordan Wrisdale, on the penultimate green. Harm, like tomorrow’s opponent, is also still trying to find a place in the strong German boys’ team.
In the other half of the draw, Whitehead’s John-Ross Galbraith, the Ulster Boys champion,  who played for Ireland in last week’s Boys Home Internationals, birdied his last two holes to defeat Italy’s Richard Broadhurst 2&1 and will now play English international, Paul Kelly, a 4 and 3 winner over Bigbury’s Sam Edwards, for a place in the last four.
The last quarter-final will pit another of the victorious members of last week’s English Boys team, Matthew Fitzpatrick, from Boston West, against Belgium’s Thomas Detry after Detry survived an amazing finale to his match against Burhill’s Callum Mackay.
Mackay, a member of the Surrey Boys team, who was No. 2 seed after finishing second behind France’s Kenny Subregis in the stroke play stage of the Championship, went two up when he had a hole-in-one with a 5-iron on the 192-yard 14^th hole but then saw his lead disappear when the Belgian bounced back with birdies on the next two holes.
Detry then went one ahead with a par on the 179-yard par-3 17th before sealing the victory with a regulation par on the last.
“It was an incredible way to win,” admitted the Belgian. “I thought I was in trouble when Callum got his hole-in-one on 14 but it just shows that you have to keep going whatever happens”.
Tomorrow’s quarter-finals start at 8.00am, with the semi-finals scheduled to begin at 1.00pm. The 36-hole final will be played on Sunday, starting at 8.30am.
Full results from today’s play, along with Saturdays draw, can be found on RandA.org