TWO of Hampshire's top young players have been awarded golfing scholarships in the United States of America.

Barton Peveril student David Butwell has won a place at Indiana University and Stoneham clubman Shaun Justice will start at Colorado next month.

Both scholarships will embrace academic studies and last four years, provided the youngsters keep pace with course requirements.

Justice and Butwell are ambitious to become tournament players and will benefit from playing the high-quality American collegiate circuit which has spawned top players like current England stars Paul Casey and Luke Donald.

Their absence from England will be a great loss for Hampshire who have selected both players on a regular basis this year.

Justice, from Andover, earned promotion to the full county side after winning the Hampshire Youth Championship in May. Butwell, who hails from Warsash and is a member of the Lee-on-Solent and Romsey Clubs, was unbeaten in Hampshire singles matches through the year.

Significantly both players were voted joint winners of the coveted Vardon Trophy, for the best young golfer in Hampshire.

The trophy was handed over at the recent annual meeting of the Hampshire Golf Union where Butwell received more silverware for topping the county junior order of merit.

He was a winner of the South of England Boys Championship and has represented the England Schoolboy team. Butwell moves to Indiana in August.

Former English champion Kevin Weeks has taken over from Lionel Smith as the new captain of the Hampshire team.

Smith, a past England international, was one of the most successful captains in Hampshire history.

They won the South East League title in each of his three years at the helm and last September took second place to Yorskhire in the County Championship Final.

Hampshire rewarded Smith with a vice presidency and the same honour was bestowed on county boys manager Tommy Flinn who has been the driving force of a major development programme down at the grass roots level of the game in the county.

Brokenhurst Manor clubman Weeks, who boasts a proud unbeaten record in South East League singles matches, becomes Hampshire's first playing captain for two decades.

During the AGM at the Potters Heron Motel in Ampfield, members played a silent triubute to three past presidents, John Holmes, John Cotton and Pat Hunt who died during the year.

Cotton was a former county captain and Holmes was secretary of the Hampshire Union for 31 years.

"John and his wife Irene were like second parents to the players," recalled Hampshire president Clive Cole.