MICHAEL Coupland emerged as Durham County Boys champion after being pushed all the way to the final hole by Dinsdale Spa teenager Callum Tarren.

Coupland carded an outstanding opening round 69 and was well placed going into the final round in an attempt to become the first Darlington golfer in 30 years to win the event.

His second round was not emphatic but still, despite his second round 74, he finished a shot ahead of Tarren at the Eaglescliffe Golf Club.

The pair, two of the region's rising talents, always looked like finishing closely and Tarren's 144, after rounds of 71 and 73, ensured that was the case.

South Shields' Martin McCririck was three shots further back while Hartlepool's Charles Tetlow ended up on 149.

Tarren's club-mate at Dinsdale Spa, Robbie Gardner, was the Sports Council Trophy - the Boys Championship (net) winner - with a score of 133, with South Shields' Jamie Pringle seven shots further back in second.

In the Under-16s Boys Championship, Whitburn's Daniel Coffey succeeded with a better back nine score, having finished level with Tyneside's James Surtees on 79.

And with the best net score, Eaglescliffe's Lewis Chaytor's (59) won on his own turf, some nine shots ahead of Dimitri Surkov-Heath, of the same club.

Durham County's disappointing start to the season failed to improve with an 11.5-6.5 defeat to Cumbria at the Brampton Golf Club.

It was not all doom and gloom for Durham, whose 16-year-old debutant Tarren - from Dinsdale Spa, who finished second in Sunday's Boys Championships -won his singles match over Barrow's Brian Rhodes by two holes.

Tarren's success was one of only four singles triumphs for Durham, with Jamie Birkbeck (The Wynyard), Stuart Brown (Bishop Auckland) and Jim Dryden (South Shields) also winning their respective matches.

But the eight reversals did nothing to improve a situation that had already seen Durham fall a point behind in the morning foursomes. Only the pairings of Graeme Marchbank & Brown and Neil Harker-Bell & Brian Ross (Heworth) managed to win.

South Moor's Pauline Dobson has claimed the Durham Ladies Championship for the fourth time by defeated rising star Ellie Givens by 2&1.

It was an enthralling encounter between the two golfers at opposite ends of the experience scale and one in which Dobson prevailed.

Givens, the 18-year-old England international, had won the first hole but then her Dipton-based opponent took a handsome lead by winning the fifth, sixth, ninth and 11th holes.

Faced with a three point deficit, Givens then clawed to within a point by taking the 12th and 14th but Dobson - who revealed afterwards that she made the decision to play the course rather than her opponent - bounced back.

The 37-year-old won the 15th and then halved the next two to secure victory over a promising golfer from Blackwell Grange that is 19 years her junior.

It is the second decade that Dobson's name will be on the trophy, having recorded previous wins in the competition in 1991, 1994 and 1998