SWINDON brothers Sam and Tom Ruddle narrowly missed out on taking the American Golf nine-hole national championship title after suffering an agonising defeat in the final at the Belfry earlier this month.

Although the title, and with it the prize of a trip to the Bahamas, was just out of their grasp the Broome Manor duo did have the consolation of walking away with R15 drivers from sponsors TaylorMade.

“We really enjoyed the event. The rounds were nice and short and made you concentrate for a short period of time,” said 28-year-old Tom, who plays off a handicap of plus-one.

“We will definitely be coming back next year.”

The brothers put together some superb play in the first two rounds held at the famous Ryder Cup venue, with their combined score putting them through to the semi-finals as the fourth-placed qualifiers, meaning they had to take on the runaway leaders from the first two rounds.

With the format changing to matchplay for the semi-final, the Ruddles put together some of the best golf of the day to take an early lead. They never looked back and pulled away throughout the round to record a resounding victory against the odds.

Going straight into the final against Yorkshire pair Luke Eustace and Mark Kelly, the brothers were immediately on the back foot as they lost the first two holes.

The competition was fierce but the Swindon duo could not quite match the consistency they had shown in the semi-finals, eventually going down to a 3&1 defeat.