My name is Stephen Anthony. Born and raised in Brecon, probably best known for being on the edge of a national park, the Brecon Beacons. I have been working in the golf club industry for over 25 years, currently the Secretary at Royal Troon Golf Club.

A few years ago I undertook a 400-mile bike ride from Troon to Brecon over four days with my son, raising money for charity in the process. During the route we were supported by our respective other halves, Christine and Rachel, to whom a huge amount of thanks must go as we could not have done it without them.

We discussed at the end of the 400 miles we could definitely have kept going (although that may have been the glorious Welsh air that was helping us!), so we started planning our next route…and decided that it would a much longer one. That was when we decided to take on a 1,000 mile ride averaging around 100 miles a day.

We decided that we would plan a route to take in all the past and present Open Championship venues. Unfortunately, a number of factors got in our way, not least the pandemic, and with the addition of Royal Portrush in Northern Ireland making the route a little trickier. Sadly, I will be doing the route on my own as William is unable to make it, so will be pedalling my way around all 14 past and present Open Championship venues, starting off in the south-east of England, making my way up to Scotland, across to Northern Ireland, and finally the three clubs in the north-west of England as well as Alder Hey Hospital, all done in the name of raising money for two charities close to my heart.