A total of 5 Shanklin and Sandown golfers reached the knockout stages of the Hampshire Amateur Championship, with Dan Mew and Nick Clemens making it through to the quarter-finals.
Mew produced rounds of 74 and 70 to qualify in 4th place, narrowly beating club-mates Nick Clemens on countback thanks to a birdie on the 18th. He then defeated former England amateur international James Knight 4&3 to set up a quarter-final clash with Buenfeld. The match went to the final hole, where Mew made a crucial putt to win the 17th, and although his birdie attempt on the last lipped out, meaning Buenfeld progressed.
6th seed Clemens, who qualified in T4 with rounds of 69 and 75, defeated Hockley’s Luke Hodgetts – who had the lowest round of qualifying with a 68 – 3&2, before falling to Preston 2&1 in the next round.
George Foreman, who posted rounds of 73 and 72 to qualify in seventh, lost 4&3 to Rowlands Castle’s Harry Fairclough. Max Hill, who took the 12th qualifying spot with 75 and 71, was knocked out 3&2 in the opening round by the eventual champion.
Ben Guy had the consolation of winning the Green Cup for the best net score in qualifying, returning rounds of 69 and 70.
In the 2 medal competitions over the weekend, Westridge’s Mark Royl claimed the Hampshire Bowl with 38 stableford points, edging out clubmate Zane Cohen on countback. Adam Barsdell of Shanklin won the Diamond Jubilee Bowl with a nett 70, just one shot ahead of clubmate Michael Heffer.
Barsdell joins notable past winners such as Mark Bell, who lifted the trophy as a junior in 2002, and Nat Riddett, who secured both the Francis Holmes Salver (gross) and Diamond Jubilee titles in 2012 – the last time Shanklin hosted the county championship.
A total of 13 years ago, several Isle of Wight golfers also made an impact in the championship’s final stages, including Freshwater’s Brandon Robinson, Josh Oddy, Osborne’s Darren Masterton and Scott Meek, alongside then-junior Dan Mew.
Elsewhere over the weekend…
Liphook’s Conor Richards was denied a fairytale return to his Shanklin & Sandown home when he lost in the semi-final of the 120th county championship against Stoneham’s Joe Buenfeld, the eventual champion after Sunday’s final.
The 27-year-old found his semi-final match to be ‘one game too far’ for the international sales manager for an American software company called Phenom.
Conor, who transferred to Miami’s Barry University in 2018 after 2 successful seasons at Lander University, in South Carolina, left the Island to follow his career outside the golfing world, and now gets to play once a week at most.
After Buenfeld reeled off 3 winning holes with pars, from the first, he then produced birdies at the fourth and sixth to take a commanding six-hole lead, after Richards’ bogey at the par-three fifth.
Not even his first birdie of the day could shift the momentum created by the University of Incarnate Word graduate, who has learned how to handle the wind playing in Texas.
While sunshine greeted the players in stark contrast to Saturday’s gloomy grey skies and strong breeze, the wind was still fresh enough to make the Isle of Wight’s premier golf course, hosting the county championship for a 12th time since 1908, a formidable opponent.
Richards shared the 10th in bogey fives to remain seven down after Buenfeld had birdied the par-five eighth, and parred the short ninth over the water, but he was forced to concede when a three was enough for Buenfeld’s par to win 8&7.
Conor said:
“I wasn’t sure if I had done the right thing when I entered. I do enjoy golf now – when I played college golf and come home in the summer and represent Hampshire, it was intense and full-on.
“But golf is now also a social activity. There’s none of the tension or anxiety. I played some good golf in the first round but then the wind got up after lunch.
“Knowing the course and having played in a few county championships I thought four or five-over would probably be enough to make the knockout. But I was struggling a bit coming home, until I missed the green at the last, thinking I might need the birdie to make it.
“I hit a great flop shot to a couple of feet to make the birdie and finish in ninth,” added the 2015 Hampshire Junior Champion.
When Shanklin last hosted the Hampshire, Isle of Wight and Channel Islands Amateur Championship in 2012, Brokenhurst Manor’s Jordan Ainley became the first-ever junior to win the boys’ and men’s championship in the same season.
