GEORGE Saunders announced his arrival as the last teenager capable of upsetting the county’s established amateurs by winning the first Hampshire Golf Order of Merit event, claiming the Delhi Cup at Hockley last Saturday.

The Meon Valley Golf and Country Club member watched clubmate Harry Ellis be crowned English Amateur Champion at the tender age of just 16 – and since that day back in 2012, Saunders has been on a mission to match his mentor and mate out on the course.

And he showed the hours playing and practising with Ellis have taught him similar good habits as he outshone the former England champion, who is back home playing after finishing his college courses on his American golf scholarship at Florida State for another season.

Ellis was top of the leader board at lunch after carding a one-under par 70, with a string of players just a shot back including Hayling’s Darren Walkley, going for a hat-trick of wins at Hockley, and Stoneham’s Ryan Henley, who held the trophy five years’ running from 2009 onwards, until Walkley interrupted that sequence in 2014.

But looking for his first win back on British soil since heading to the States in early 2014 after some tough times away from the course, Ellis made some costly mistakes playing up against Henley in the final match out on the course.

The Southampton-based player who has appeared in six English County Finals for Hampshire, and won the county championship three times made three birdies in a row from the 13th – on the 14th his wedge stopped just two inches from the hole.

With the wind having made scoring tough in the morning, and the greens getting a little sluggish as the grass grew in the afternoon sunshine, making it even trickier to get the pace of the greens, those three birdies seemed like gold-dust – especially as he had extended his lead over Ellis from two after 12, to five after 15 as the ex-England international eventually carded a 76, which relegated him to ninth place.

Henley’s blemish had been on the front nine when he double bogeyed the seventh and he could only par the last with a five as he carded a one-under 70 after lunch to finish on one under for 36 holes.

But Saunders had already posted the best score of the day having also carded a 71 in the morning.

His three-under par 68 owed everything to a solid middle patch, picking up shots at the seventh, ninth and 12th.

His confidence was boosted – having made three birdies and three bogeys in the first round – by canning a 30 footer on the seventh and he made a great up and down on the par three eighth to stay in the red.

His approach to five feet with a pitching wedge two holes later was converted followed by another from 25 feet on the par three 12th after his eight-iron finished pin high on the left.

Saunders has already been crowned Hampshire under-14 and under-15 champion and having finished third in the Sir Henry Cooper Junior Masters last summer, earned his call up for the England under-16 match against Wales.