Hampshire fall just short of reaching English County Golf Finals – despite Walkley’s last-hole heroics
Not even a spectacular hole-out by former EuroPro Tour player Darren Walkley could fire Hampshire to their first English County Finals in seven years, as Essex pipped them at the death in the South East Qualifier.
Walkley, who played with Europe’s best prospects on the mini-tours before quitting the pro game during the pandemic after five years in the paid ranks, striped his drive up the hill on the last.
In front of a growing crowd of players and county officials from the three counties in contention, he then swept a sweetly struck wedge and watched as the ball bounced before tracking into the bottom of the cup.
The eagle two gave Walkley a second round 67 – five better than his morning effort, which had been Hampshire’s highest score in the first round and therefore discarded with only the best five counting.
But cruelly, within a couple of minutes, the leaderboard was updated to show Essex’s England international Zach Chegwidden had come home in 68.
That four-under score gave Essex their first victory in the event since 2009 when they denied Hampshire a hat-trick of successive wins at Suffolk’s Aldeburgh.
The full-time carpenter, a former Southsea GC member, had briefly given his team-mates hopes of reeling in lunchtime leaders Berkshire, Bucks and Oxfordshire’s 16-under score in the morning round.
The wind had whipped up around Brighton’s Devil’s Dyke on the Sussex Downs, sending scores soaring after lunch.
B.B.&O. took 22 shots more, while Hampshire added a four-under total to their first round score to post a total of 708, only for Essex to shoot 706.
Hampshire plugged away valiantly all day in search of their eighth win in the South East Qualifier since 2002, including three in a row from 2015-17.
But two late mistakes by Walkley’s fellow Liphook member George Saunders – who made a triple-bogey seven after losing his tee shot on the last – and a double-bogey six on the 16th by Brokenhurst Manor veteran Martin Young, playing in his 24th consecutive Six-man, ultimately proved costly.
Walkley, who made three birdies and three bogeys in his level-par 72 in round one, opened with three quick birdies after lunch as he plundered the Dyke’s unusual start, with three par-fives in the first four holes.
He made another birdie at the par-five 11th and got to four-under with a three at the 15th – only to give it straight back after failing to get up-and-down on the 16th, as he finished in a share of fifth overall out of the 66 players competing from the 11 counties.
Saunders, who shot a three-under par 69 before lunch, with six birdies and a double-bogey, was four-under with four to play. But he dropped five shots to fall down the
leaderboard from second to 12th thanks to his 73.
The former England U16 cap, who grew up playing at Meon Valley, has been the county’s strongest performer in recent years.
He finished eighth in 2019 and 11th in both 2021 and 2022, having finished ninth on his debut when Hampshire won in 2017 at Norfolk’s Sheringham GC.
The last Hampshire player to win the Peter Benka Trophy for the best 36-hole score was Harry Ellis in 2016, when Saunders caddied for the England international who would play in the Walker Cup against the USA a year later.