Boy keeps swinging to secure yet another success.

Byline: HAROLD BROUGH

PAUL KINNEAR has been celebrating a dazzling week of success - the best of his young career - winning the Lancashire Boys Championship and within days of becoming the aggregate nett winner of the spring meeting at his home club.

The 15-year-old, a member at Formby, is already collecting an impressive golf CV. He has twice been a winner in the Wallasey Junior Open including last year when, aged 14, he played and won against boys up to three years older.

He has already played in Northern Order of Merit events and finished seventh in the prestigious Crosby Plate.

But he counts his win in the Lancashire Boys at Wiltshire - and at the first time he has entered - as among his biggest successes so far.

He returned 72,72, one of four boys tied on 144, and faced what he describes as a nervous wait until he was declared the winner in the card play-off. His Formby club colleague Anthony Stirling was second and Childwall's Matthew Hanlon third.

"I was shaken really," he says.

"I just did not think I had done enough to win it. I thought my score was not good enough. There were so many good golfers." Reviewing his big day he says: "I was a bit nervous on the first tee but after that I was quite fine.

"On the day it was my driving and iron play that was right. My putting was bad actually but then other players said that they had putted badly. But off the tee I did put the ball in the right position." The championship win completed a remarkable week.

The previous weekend he returned 70 gross, 67 nett on the first day of the Formby Spring Meeting and the following Saturday, the day before the Lancashire Championship and with his handicap cut to two, he returned 78 gross, 76 nett to become the meeting's overall nett winner.

In contrast to his second round in the Lancashire Boys he putted well in the first round of the Spring Meeting. "In the second round the weather was bad," he recalls.

Paul Kinnear "The rain was the worst I have ever played in. But I kept my cool and I did put the ball in the right place." He is a pupil at Maghull High school and he shares his love of golf with a passion for football.

He played for the Dolphins, a Sunday League team from Melling and he has been involved with Tranmere Rovers since the age of nine and he is a member of the club's School of Excellence.

He was 10 when his father Ian introduced him to golf at the Kirkby Municipal.

He enjoyed the game immediately and joined Formby when he was 12. His first handicap was 18 and he reduced to 11 in his first year.

Ian is a member at Mossock Hall and with a handicap of nine helps his son develop his golf game.

But now the teenager is looking for a coach "to take me one step further." His golf dates for this season include the Lancashire Amateur at Southport and Ainsdale this weekend and also the Faldo series.

"It has been the biggest week I have had so far," he says. "I am just enjoying things. I don't need to work on anything in particular with golf. It is just concentration, more consistency.

He plays golf three times a week, he is at Tranmere twice a week and there are the matches on a Sunday.

He does not have set plans for his sporting career.

"I am just going to see what happens, golf and football," he says..The rain was the worst I have ever played in PAUL KINNEAR