Many thanks to Andrew Griffin for this latest report from the Hampshire Amateur Championships. Ed
Sundborg loses out in Jordan battle
Sundborg, from Shanklin and Sandown, has been most impressive this season having made his debut for the Hampshire, Isle of Wight and Channel Islands first team, winning three and halving the other of his four games against Dorset and Kent.
He was only prevented from reaching the last four by Brokenhurst’s Jordan Ainley, gunning for his second Sloane Stanley Challenge Cup, having claimed his first when Shanklin and Sandown last hosted the championship in 2012.
Near miss
Ainley had been on the brink of missing the weeknd after a disastrous first round in Friday’s 36-hole qualifier before storming up the leaderboard with a best of the afternoon 67.
He abandoned a safety first strategy off the tee and swapped his long irons for drivers and continued that policy in the knockout rounds on Saturday. Sundborg, who made it through to the last 16 at Blackmoor two years ago, missed last summer’s championship at Hockley because is clashed with his GCSE exams.
Surprise qualifier
Having claimed the third seed in the draw, he faced one of the surprise qualifiers in the first round in the shape of Barton-on-Sea’s John Milne, and went two up on the tenth after holing a 30-footer on the long par three.
Milne went out of bounds at the eleventh to go three down and Jordan sealed a 4&3 win by making another six-foot birdie on the fifteenth.
That set up the clash with Ainley and a place in the last four beckoned for Sundborg as he went two up with just four to play having fought his way back from two down after five holes.
He won the sixth, eighth and ninth to go in front for the first time and after losing the tenth, bounced straight back at the eleventh before claiming the thirteenth.
A sublime chip
Ainley made a ten-footer for a birdie three to halve the deficit before the pair halved the long sixteenth in birdie fours, only for the home favourite to hole a tricky six-footer with plenty of break on the sloping seventeenth green.
Sundborg splashed out of the front trap on the short par four eighteenth, but Ainley from his pin high drive hit a sublime chip.
He then holed from four feet after Jordan’s putt stayed up.
Knock out
Richards, qualified in seventh place after two fine rounds of 71, but the Hampshire Junior Champion – bidding to equal Ainley’s record of being the only player to have won the Hampshire men’s and boy’s titles in the same year was knocked out by eventual losing finalist Tom Robson, from Rowlands Castle.
The 2009 county champion was three up after three courtesy of a birdie, eagle, birdie start but Richards showed his mettle making a birdie two at the sixth before Robson got stuck behind a tree on the seventh to get back to one down.
Richards lost the twelfth with a bogey, but a flier from the rough on the thirteenth saw him find the ferns behind the green to give hope to the 17-year-old, who finished second in the British Schools Championships at St Andrews, last month.
Robson produced the hammer blow at the par five sixteenth, firing a seven-iron 230 yards to 20 feet before making his eagle putt.
The pair shook hands on the seventeenth as Robson holed an eight-footer with two feet of break to make par and seal a 2&1 victory.
Setting the pace early
Sundborg had set the early pace on the first day, shooting a superb best-of-the-day 66 in the morning round. And it could have been so much better.
The 17-year-old was six-under par stood on the eighteenth, but he flushed his drive on the short par four behind a tree on the right and had to chip out and only succeeded in finding the front bunker with his next. But from having a two shot-lead at lunch, the wind begin to gust quite strongly around the tree-lined course in the heart of the New Forest, and scoring was much harder with just two rounds breaking par from the field of 78.
Sundborg had to settle for a 72 after a costly double-bogey six on the seventeenth thanks to a missed short putt.
That cost him a chance to win the Pechell Salver for the lowest qualifying score having made four more bogeys having made birdies at the par five second and and the driveable fifteenth.
Representing Hampshire
The consolation for Sundborg and Richards is that they will represent Hampshire, Isle of Wight and the Channel Islands in the England Champion Club tournament at Durham’s Brancepth Castle, in September after claiming the Club Team Championship.
The pair – playing with Nat Riddett (72, 79) – posted a 11-over total of 431 in the qualifier to pip Royal Jersey by a shot.
Westridge’s Josh Oddy missed out on a place in the last 16 after the English U16 international carded rounds of 74 and 80 to finish 43rd.
But the trio will have to wait until next year’s championship at Hayling before getting a chance to equal that victory by Shanklins J E Mellor back in 1939 – when the championship was also held at Hayling.
Results
Hampshire, Isle of Wight and Channel Islands Amateur Championship
Brokenhurst Manor BC 5-7 June
Final
Darren Walkley (Hayling) beat Tom Robson (Rowlands Castle) 3&2
Semi-finals
Walkley beat Chris Blunden (Sandford Springs) 3&1
Robson beat Jordan Ainley (Brokenhurst Manor) 2up
Quarter-finals
Walkley beat Jason Stokes (La Moye) 1up
Robson beat Billy McKenzie (Rowlands Castle) at 20th
Ainley beat Jordan Sundborg (Shanklin & Sandown) 1up
Blunden beat Haydn Reay (Army GC) 1up
1st round
Walkley beat Max Nicholls (Sandford Springs) 4&3
Robson beat Conor Richards (Shanklin & Sandown) 2&1
Blunden beat Billy Watson (North Hants) 1up
Ainley beat Martin Young (Brokenhurst Manor) 1up
McKenzie beat Jamie Mist (Hayling) 4&3
Sundbordg beat John Milne (Barton-on-Sea) 4&3
Reay beat Nick Wildman (Royal Jersey) 2&1
Stokes beat Steven Anderson (Royal Jersey) 1up
36-hole qualifier (Friday)
140 – Blunden 70, 70 (Pechell Salver and Hampshire U21 champion); B McKenzie 68, 72; Sundborg 66, 74; Walkley 68, 72;
142 Stokes 73, 69; Young 71, 71; Richards 71; 71; Wildman 70, 72; Reay 69, 73;
143 – Robson 70, 73;
144 – Ainley 77, 67; Anderson 74, 70; Nicholls 72, 72; Milne 72, 72; Mist 69, 75;
145 – Watson 72, 73;
DID NOT QUALIFY
145 – G O’Neill (Royal Jersey) 72, 73; E Welton (Southwick Park)
146 – B Lobacz (Petersfied) 75, 71; J Anderson (Royal Jersey) 72, 74
