MARK Phillips was crowned champion of the AON Fecchio Cup after he beat out Jun Hardart in the 54-hole tournament at Port Royal last week.Phillips, who carded a total 234 for Hardart's 237, won the 15-18 division and following the tournament all the juniors were treated to a talk by Bermuda's Michael Sims who just left the island to start play in the Nationwide Tour.

Cindy Kinjo-Hardart, the Bermuda Junior Golf Association chairperson, said this week: "The tournament this year was special in that it is the first time ever for the BJGA to have a main sponsor in a major tournament."

And Kinjo-Hardart also praised Sims for showing up and talking to Bermuda's rising stars.

She said: "The last treat of the final prizegiving was for Michael Sims to spend 30 minutes just talking about his time growing up as a junior golfer and how BJGA had given him the opportunity to travel outside of Bermuda to compete in tournaments such as the Junior Worlds at the same time as Tiger Woods etc. Michael really had everyone's attention — both the juniors and the adults. He also had a question and answer session with questions like 'What is your favourite club?' to 'How do you prepare yourself before a tournament and how much time do you take practising? It was a big treat to end a tournament this way."

Although Jun Hardart was the runner-up after the final hole was played, he was the leader on the second day with two strokes up on Phillips.

On the final day, Phillips and Hardart were even after the ninth. Hardart then went one stroke ahead of Phillips on the 16th hole but on the 17th his errant drive went out of bounds into the trees. He then shot his fourth into the pond and had to settle with a very disappointing 10.

Even though Hardart managed a par on the 18th hole and Phillip only managed a bogey, the latter ended up three shots ahead to take the title.

Third place was won by Terrance Daniels on 245.

Kinjo-Hardart said: "In the past, all gross and net winners in all the divisions received trophies as prizes. But, this year, AON Re agreed to make a big difference with our tournaments starting from the Fecchio Cup. All the junior participants were given goody bags with magnetic ball markers, divot tools, Aon logoed Titleist balls, etc. What a treat! AON had also donated a total of $3,000 American Airlines travel vouchers as purse prizes to the top five gross winners from the 15 & Up age group; three gross winners from the 13 & 14 group; one gross winner in the 12 & Under group and lastly one gross winner from the Novice group. These juniors never expected such prizes. They were only expecting trophies."

Winner of the 12 and Under was Scott Gilbertson on 287 while Andrew Lee won the Novice event on 213 (from the red tees).

Mark Phillips seals the deal