Avid Portsmouth FC supporter Sam Parsons crowned Hampshire, Isle of Wight and Channel Islands amateur golf champion

The avid Pompey supporter produced a superb scrambling display in the final against county veteran Ryan Henley, who was bidding to become the second most successful player in the county championship’s 130-year history.

Parsons, 31, who joined Blackmoor nine years ago, put the four-time Sloane-Stanley Challenge Cup winner under huge pressure on the back nine, with some exemplary scrambling as his opponent struggled for energy.

Henley, from Stoneham GC, was playing his sixth round in three days, having had a suspected bout of covid less than a week earlier.

That is not to make any excuses for his eventual 3&1 defeat, though, as Parsons dealt with the pressures and expectations of playing in front of some three dozen Blackmoor members who came out to support him in his first-ever final with a bit of Pompey-Southampton rivalry thrown in for good measure.

Parsons, who took up golf aged eight when his brother went for lessons, has always been one of the most unflappable members of the Hampshire county squad.

He also bears a PFC crest tattoo on his right leg.

And his mettle was fully tested as the understandable nerves showed in the early exchanges as Henley went two-up after just three holes.

Parsons picked up the sixth and seventh to get back to all-square, and sank a seven-footer at the short ninth, after Henley birdied the first of only two par-fives on the heathland course, regarded as the toughest on the county championship rota.

Parsons went in front for the first time at the 11th courtesy of a par as Henley missed another green.

At the long par-three, 15th Parsons doubled his lead after Henley failed to get up-and-down after going long again over the raised green.

He then had to make a clutch 15-footer for birdie on the 16th after Parsons hit his approach stiff, but then found the bunker on the par-three 17th.

Henley generously conceded with a snaking putt of nearly 20-feet for the half, after Parsons rolled his birdie effort up to the hole to make him just the second county champion from the Whitehill club.

Defeat means Hockley’s Brian Winteridge’s record of being the last player to successfully defend the county crown, back in 1982, stands for at least another year.

Blackmoor’s only previous champion was Stuart Archibald in 2006, after his win at Hayling over Toby Burden on the latter’s home course.