Walkley runner-up once again as Hendy claims fourth Hampshire, Isle of Wight and Channel Islands Amateur Championship title success

Walkley ended Henley’s run of five wins in a row in the Delhi Cup – the Twyford Down club’s premier 36-hole men’s open – back in 2014, when it became the opening event of the Hampshire Order of Merit.

Walkley would not only go on to win it later that summer, but also returned to Hockley 12 months later and retained it – adding another Cullen Quaich in 2015 as he dominated the county order of merit.

And in that purple summer before he turned pro late that autumn, Walkley also claimed his first Sloane-Stanley Challenge Cup, at the age of 25, beating Rowlands Castle’s Tom Robson in the final at Brokenhurst Manor.

But in the final of the 118th Hampshire, Isle of Wight and Channel Islands Amateur Championship, it was Henley who emerged as ‘King of the Hill’ at Hockley.

Henley had blown away Brokenhurst’s Martin Young in the semi-final with a run of four birdies and an eagle in six holes from the turn – to be six-under in six holes – on his way to a 3&2 victory to book his seventh final appearance since 1999.

And in the afternoon final, Walkley, who had held off the ferocious challenge of Basingstoke’s rising US college star Charlie Forster in the other semi to win 2&1, came up short.

Walkley, runner-up in the nationally-ranked Selborne Salver at Blackmoor GC in April, was three-down by the turn.

Three birdies in the next four holes really turned the screw and forced the Liphook GC member, from Westbourne, to go for every flag, going out of bounds with his second on the par-five 14th.

He then had to chip over the deep gulley protecting the 15th green, but could only make par, which the champion-elect matched before shaking his worthy opponent’s hand.

Walkley qualified in second place in the 36-hole qualifier, missing out on the Pechell Salver by virtue of a countback to the 2019 European Junior Open winner Joe Buenfeld, from Bramshaw.

They both carded rounds 74 and 70 in very fast and firm conditions, with greens almost impossible to hold down wind and downhill.

•Henley now sits in a three-way tie for the third most Sloane-Stanley wins – behind Stoneham’s David Harrison, who won seven between 1965 and 1976.

Hayling’s Ian Patey won four in a row in the 1930s, before adding a fifth in 1948, the year before he became Hampshire’s first English Amateur Champion.