Bishop’s Stortford Golf Club member Ben Sessions picked for England Under-16s and qualifies for Justin Rose Telegraph Junior Golf Championship in Portugal

Sixteen-year-old Bishop’s Stortford Golf Club (BSGC) member Ben Sessions has underlined his status as one of the best young golfers in the country.

He has been picked to play for England at age group level and has made the final cut for junior golf’s ‘major’ in Portugal – a tournament won seven years ago by friend and fellow BSGC member Max Hopkins.

His selection and qualification successes follow his victory earlier this month in BSGC’s 18-hole scratch competition when he shot a gross four-under-par round of 67.

Sessions, a Bishop’s Stortford High School student, has been selected as part of a 12-strong team of six boys and six girls to play for England Under-16s against Ireland Under-16s at Burnham & Berrow Golf Club in Somerset on October 5-6.

He is joined by Teesside GC duo Alex Boyes and Thomas Hartshorne, Cameron Mukherjee (Gullane GC, Scotland), Charlie Rushbridge (Colne Valley GC, Essex) and Cole Self (Ringway GC, Lancashire).

The six girls are Lila Bisset (Northamptonshire County GC), Summer Carash (Minchinhampton GC, Gloucestershire), Ellie Linchtenhein (The Buckinghamshire GC) and a trio from Surrey’s Walton Heath GC, twins Annabel and Emily Peaford, and Elizabeth Wilson.

Also, Sessions is among the 12 boys and 12 girls who have qualified for the Justin Rose Telegraph Junior Golf Championship at the Quinta do Lago resort on the Algarve on December 7-12.

He made it through after carding a gross 66 – good enough to secure him 10th place in the qualifying table – in the Bishop’s Stortford GC Junior Open in August.

Sessions, whose current handicap is plus 2.2, joined BSGC in 2015 at the age of seven. A club spokesman remarked then that he looked a special talent and, two years later, he won the Essex School Mid-Handicap Competition playing against some boys twice his age.

Former Hockerill Anglo-European College student Max Hopkins became the youngest ever winner of the Telegraph Junior Golf Championship in 2017 when, as a 14-year-old, he shot a two-under total of 214 over the three rounds. Two years later he was joint runner-up.