By Kent Gray
Dubai-based amateur golf sensation Josh Hill has been named among a stellar cast of nominees for the 2019 BBC Young Sports Personality of the Year award.
The 15-year-old England boys’ representative became the youngest winner of an Official World Golf Ranking event, eclipsing Japan’s ‘Bashful Prince’ Ryo Ishikawa for the world record, when he captured the MENA Tour’s Al Ain Open late last month.
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Hill has been named as one of 10 finalists alongside Scottish mountain biker Charlie Aldridge, rugby league player Caitlin Beevers, skateboarder Sky Brown, boxer Caroline Dubios, Welsh artistic gymnast Bethany Paull, Taekwondo exponent Aaliyah Powell, kayaker Ottilie Robinson-Shaw and Para-swimmers Toni Shaw and Maisie Summers-Newton.
“Everyone at the MENA Tour by Arena is obviously over the moon that Josh has been included as one of The Top 10 BBC Young Sports Personalities of the Year for 2019,” said the David Spencer, the regional Pro-Am circuit’s strategic advisor. “Exactly like the MENA Tour by Arena, Josh was born in Dubai and is young, hard-working and trying to find his way in a very competitive landscape.
“We are intensely proud and privileged to have Josh as a member of the MENA Tour and he is emblematic of the fact that your dreams are the blueprint of reality.”
(Photo by Masam Ali)
The Young Sports Personality of the Year winner will be announced at the BBC Radio 1 Teen Awards on November 24 and will go on to attend BBC Sports Personality of the Year in Aberdeen on December 15.
Hill’s most pressing engagement is the MENA Tour Championship at Ayla Golf Club in Jordan from next Thursday where he will attempt to overcome countryman and Open Championship qualifier Curtis Knipes for the amateur Journey to Jordan title.
RELATED: Dubai amateur Josh Hill sets world record as the youngest winner of OWGR event
The winner of the points race earns a start in January’s Omega Dubai Desert Classic, the middle event of the European Tour’s annual desert swing including the Abu Dhabi Dhabi HSBC Championship and Saudi International in King Abdullah Economic City.
