Dates set for 2020 Guernsey golf championships

Island golf champions will be crowned in Guernsey this year after the dates for the four local championships were confirmed.

The men's, women's, juniors, and seniors events had all been postponed from their original dates when this year's inter-island golf matches were cancelled because of the coronavirus pandemic.

A slimmed-down format will see an 18-hole qualifying round held for the men and women at L'Ancresse on Sunday 9 August, with the top four players in each going forward to contest matchplay semi-finals and finals the following weekend.

The seniors events, which will be played at La Grande Mare, are scheduled to take place across the second week of September, while the dates and format of the junior competitions are yet to be agreed.

It would mean an earlier return to competitive golf than had been expected locally, with Guernsey Golf Union president Gary Darling telling ITV News at the start of May that it felt "a million miles away" then.

Guernsey has gone several weeks without a new confirmed case of Covid-19 and is set to move to the penultimate phase of its lockdown exit on Saturday 20 June, when all on-island restrictions will be lifted.