Saunders aiming to impress England selectors in this week’s English Amateur Championships

But over the past decade, the cream of the county’s amateur players have made Hampshire one of the most successful in England, with two players reaching the final.

Harry Ellis famously won as a 16-year-old, breaking Sir Nick Faldo’s 37-year-old record as the youngest winner in the process.

But with Corhampton’s Scott Gregory - who reached the last eight in 2015 and and 2017 as well as losing in the 2014 final - and Ellis now firmly in the professional ranks, the entry list for the 90th English Amateur Championship has just four names who can further Hampshire’s reputation.

Both Stoneham’s Owen Grimes - who claimed his first Hampshire, Isle of Wight and Channel Islands Amateur Championship crown at Liphook two years ago - and Lee--on-the-Solent’s George Saunders threatened to go deep last summer at Surrey’s Hankley Common, only to come up just short on one of the country’s best heathland courses.

Saunders was one up with one to play in the third round - and with a place in the last 16 beckoning, he missed the green and was unable to get up and down from a horrid lie besides a bush.

His opponent - Essex’s Bradley Bawden - levelled the match before booking his place in the fourth round with a win on the first extra hole in sudden-death.

Grimes was up against a more formidable opponent on paper with Essex’s Curtis Knipes battling him all the way to the last hole before knocking out the left-hander, who is one of the doughtiest matchplay exponents Hampshire currently possesses.

The former US college player, who came home early to concentrate on his amateur career in the UK in December 2018, will be stronger for last year’s experience - having also won two of Hampshire’s top Order of Merit events, the Delhi Cup - twice - and the Bren Gun at Aldershot’s Army GC.

Saunders was forced to come home from Texas AM back in March after all NCJAA golf championships were cancelled because of the pandemic.

His team were looking forward to qualifying for the national finals as one of the top five ranked colleges in the USA.

Saunders was ranked in the top five as an individual and, having won the West of England Amateur Championship two years ago before heading to America that autumn, he will fear no one should he safely negotiate his way into the last 64 - a feat he managed at Ganton four years ago aged just 16.

He also reached the last 32 two years ago at Formby, before running into a rampant England junior international Robin Williams.

The Peterborough Milton teenager, 18, beat Ellis to claim his first win in a professional event on the Mena Tour in Abu Dhabi in the autumn.

Like Ellis, Saunders was a member at Meon Valley G&CC at Shedfield, near Fareham, and having been a regular practice partner has every idea of what it takes to develop a game capable of reaching the highest levels.

Now having turned 20, Saunders will want to make a statement in front of the England selectors who will gather in Lincolnshire - Woodhall Spa is regarded as arguably the country’s finest inland course.

It will be hosting both the English Men’s and Women’s Amateur in a bold departure for the nation’s governing body, brought about by the covid-19 crisis.

With its cavernous bunkers, finding fairways will be at a premium this week with pars likely to win more holes than it will lose when the matchplay gets under way on Thursday.

First the field of 244 players must negotiate two rounds on the Hotchkin and Bracken course before the former stages the knockout, culminating in Sunday’s 36-hole final.

A look down the honours board - both before and after Ellis’ victory at Cumbria’s Silloth-on-Solway course eight years ago - shows the quality it takes to win the country’s top amateur event.

Future Masters winner Danny Willett was the winner in 2007, followed three years later by Ryder Cup hero Tommy Fleetwood.

Wentworth’s Steven Brown - who won the Portuguese Masters last year - won at Woburn in 2011, before Hertfordshire’s Callum Shinkwin was the victor at Oxfordshire’s Frilford Heath in 2013.

Frilford Heath was where Brokenhurst Manor's Kevin Weeks became just the second winner of the English Amateur from Hampshire in 1985.

Lee's Steve Richardson won it four years later and found himself in Europe's Ryder Cup team two years after that.

The defending champion is Buckinghamshire’s Conor Gough, who was just four days shy of breaking Ellis’ record at Hankley a year ago.

The 16-year-old beat Northamptonshire’s Callum Farr - winner of the Selborne Salver at East Hampshire’s Blackmoor GC in 2018 - to earn a place in the Great Britain and Ireland Walker Cup team to face the USA at Hoylake.

Reigning Hampshire Junior title holder Aman Uddin will make his English Amateur debut at Woodhall Spa.

The former Cams Hall GC champion, now a member at Lee-on-the-Solent with Saunders, enjoyed a successful first season at Dixie University - not far from the bright lights of Las Vegas.