Golf: Cumberwell Park pro, Steve Surry secured his first victory on the EuroPro Tour in the opening event of the season at Collingtree Park this week.

Rounds of 70, 73 and 72 in difficult playing conditions saw him finish on 1 under par, and pick up the Collingtree Masters trophy and £10,000 prize money.

Surry’s week had started with a Jamega Tour event at Cumberwell Park on Monday/Tuesday, where he was disappointed to finish in 5th place.

He then headed straight off to Northampton, and had to tee up early on Wednesday morning without the benefit of a practice round, or even time to walk the course.

At the end of day one, a round of 2 under par (70), put him in 4th place.

His steady play continued on day two, with a 73 being enough to keep him in contention, in 5th place.

Conditions on all three days were very tough, with strong winds.

Day three brought the added pressure of being followed by the Sky cameras, as Surry was identified as one of the players who could challenge leader Chris Hanson, who had started the day with a 5 shot lead.

Surry put in another steady round of 72, and then had to watch and wait to see if it was enough.

Hanson appeared to capitulate under the pressure and dropped down the leaderboard with a final score of 81.

This left Surry on his own in top spot, at 1 under for the tournament.

Surry said “I knew that if I played well today I would at least put pressure on, and that paid off.

"I have been working very hard on my game all winter, in conjunction with my coach Ben Lloyd at Cumberwell.

"The recent addition of the superb short-game practice facility at the club has really helped me to take this area of my game to a new level, and the results of that could be seen today.”

The victory will ensure that Surry will get plenty of TV exposure when the highlights are aired on Sky Sports on 20th May. He now heads off to Ireland next week for the Euro Pro event at Faithlegg, near Waterford.

With the full support of Cumberwell this year, Steve will be playing a mixture of Euro Pro Tour, Jamega Tour and hopefully some European Challenge Tour events before starting the gruelling 14 round marathon in search of his European Tour card in September.

You can keep up to date with Steve’s progress throughout the season at www.stevesurry.com where he will post details of his schedule, results and keep a blog on his own thoughts throughout the long season.