Keighley are hoping their defeat against Bradford last week will not cost them their first Scratch League title in ten years.

The Howden Park club looked favourites to win the crown in their first season back in the top flight after going up as Second Division champions.

Success would see them become only the second club, along with West Bradford, to break a decade of dominance by Baildon and Northcliffe.

But a 7-1 loss at Hawksworth last Friday meant the pendulum swung back towards current title holders Baildon, who have been champions four times along with Northcliffe since Keighley's last triumph in 1997.

Key players Liam O'Neill and Adam Sagar were not present in that defeat and, with a string of EGU events coming up next month, they could be missing for other games as the league season reaches its climax.

Both players have only been beaten once this season and Sagar has a 100 per cent record on home soil.

O'Neill - the double Bradford Junior champion - already looks doubtful for the top-of-the-table fixture at Baildon on July 6 as it clashes with the English Boys' Under-16 Championship at Southport and Ainsdale Golf Club.

However, captain Stewart Shackleton has some experienced names to call on for the run-in the shape of Andy Utley and Phil Wood.

Utley was in the team when Keighley last won the title while Wood, a former Yorkshire captain, won a third successive Bradford Open crown in the same year.

The squad also includes Joe Marshall - who is unbeaten since joining from Branshaw this season - his brother James and Sam Jewell. All three have played for the Bradford Union.

Shackleton said: "We are still very much in the running. I am sure other captains will be in the same position regarding some of their top players.

"The next two weeks are pretty vital. We go to Northcliffe on Friday while Baildon are at Shipley, who usually do well at home.

"Then we need to get something at Baildon.

"The way the fixtures have fallen means that Baildon finish their season a week earlier than us.

"Our aim is to go to Shipley on the last day still in with a chance."

With five weeks of the season to go, there is still time for other clubs to enter the title race.

Bradford will hope to continue their recent good form, while Northcliffe and Hollins Hall both have games in hand.

At the same time, the league is so bunched up that neither of these sides are safe from relegation at this stage.

Meanwhile, Sagar defends his Bradford Amateur Strokeplay Championship over 36 holes at Bingley St Ives on Sunday.

The 18-year-old scratch handicapper won last year on his home course in a play-off with West Bradford's Paul Thomas after a heavy storm forced the second round to be abandoned.

He said: "I'm playing well at the moment.

"I won my singles match for Bradford at St Ives on Sunday and it is a course I like.

"I saw Billy Foster when I was there and he wished me good luck."

Sagar has been back in England since mid-April after travelling over from Spain where he lives with his family during the winter.

Along with a clutch of other local golfers, including defending champion Gareth Evans, he was trying to qualify for the matchplay stages of the Yorkshire Amateur Championship at Moortown today.

Rain meant the strokeplay stage was reduced to just 18 holes.