The South Bradford golfer, after years of trying, has finally won the Karl Curran Trophy, named in honour of his close friend and former team-mate, who died in 2009 at the age of just 37 after battling against skin cancer.

Winning the trophy is incredibly difficult, given it is based on cumulative points from that year’s main Bradford Union events.

But Busfield did enough at the Yorkshire Inter-District Union Team Championship earlier this month at Crosland Heath to pip young prodigy Huey Cunningham to the crown by three points.

An emotional Busfield told the T&A: “Winning the Karl Curran is probably the best achievement I’ve ever had as an individual.

“Karl and I were very close friends and he was someone I always looked up to.

“We played a lot of golf together as juniors and he was a true gentleman, as well as a great player.

“He always had time for me if I’d struggled in a round, just sitting me down and telling me where he thought I’d gone wrong.”

The trophy has existed ever since 2009, with Busfield coming close but not managing to lift the title in honour of his mate until now.

Andy Busfield (left) with his former South Bradford team-mate Oliver Tasker, who won last year’s Karl Curran Trophy.(Image: UGC)

He reflected: “When you look at all the talent within the Bradford Union, and my age now, it’s one of the hardest trophies to win.

“I’ve always tried to win the Karl Curran, but I tend to have other achievements to go for that I think are more realistic.

“But to have won it now, it’s definitely up there as one of my best achievements.”

Busfield’s Bradford side struggled in the Yorkshire Inter-District Union Championship, coming bottom of the eight-team table without a win.

But Busfield himself performed well, running away with the Bradford Union Captain’s Salver title as a result, while the squad showed their ability at the aforementioned end of year Team Championship earlier this month.

Bradford finished ahead of Sheffield, Harrogate and East Riding to come fifth, while they were only eight strokes behind second-placed Teesside.

There were four Bradford golfers in the individual top-30, with one of them Busfield, and the other three being teenage talents Cunningham, Harry Phillips and Archie Rowntree.

Huey Cunningham won the Bradford Open this summer, doing so at the age of just 18.(Image: UGC)

Busfield, who will captain the Bradford Union next year too, said: “We’ve got a strong pool of players but unfortunately, they often have other commitments, which I fully understand.

“I’ve always told them family and work come first and my only request for the lads that do play is that they turn up looking smart and try their best.

“Huey, who’s going to America next year, only got to play three regular season matches for example, which was just enough for him to qualify for our six-man Team Championship side earlier this month.

“It came down to the two of us in that event to decide the Karl Curran winner, so I was quite nervous, because I’ve come second in it a few times.

“Huey’s a far better golfer than I am handicap-wise, so I just went into the six-man trying to post two reasonably good scores and then if he still beat me, fair enough.

“But we shot exactly the same score as each other over the two rounds and I pipped him on countback.

“That meant I won the Karl Curran, but it was unusual for the Trophy to even get down to that event, as normally it’s decided way before then.”