LIAM Ball won his first Mitsushiba Northern Order of Merit title with a borrowed set of clubs he didn’t even have time to practice with.

The 18-year-old one handicapper finished top of the pile in the Bolton Old Links Trophy – the final fixture of the season – with rounds of 71 and 75 in testing conditions.

But He had been was resigned to pulling out of the event when his clubs were stolen from the boot of his car parked in the driveway at his Westhoughton home three days earlier.

“I did not have another set but my Chorley clubmate Sam Stuart came to the rescue and lent me his irons because he was not playing,” he explained.

“I’d did not even get the chance to try them out. and then felt strange when I picked them up because they were not like my own.

“They were the same make but had different shafts but I just went out and gave them a whirl. Sam told me later I could rent them for a fiver a day!”

With his nearest rival and fellow England player James Robinson, from Gathurst, not competing, Stuart clinched runners-up spot in the merit behind Lancashire team-mate Mark Young, from Longridge, for the second time in three years and without hitting a ball.

But a cold, wet and windy day belonged to Ball, who was beginning to wonder it he would win anything this season after losing the Bolton Championship final to clubmate Andrew Palmer.

And Ball nearly let it slip again when – after sharing the half-way lead – he made a potentially disastrous start to his afternoon round with a double bogey at the second hole, where he lost his drive, and dropped another stroke at the short fourth.

But he regained his composure to win by three shots from host club player David Jones.

RETIRED truck driver William Alberts went that extra mile when he won a longest drive competition to raise £400 for Bolton Hospice.

The 68-year-old Bolton Open member pegged up 1,108 times to reach his target of 100 miles at Astley Golf Centre.

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