TOM Robson looked on course to replicate Danny Willett’s winning ways at Augusta as he closed in on his first national amateur title in the UK, on Sunday.
But a disastrous double bogey seven at the penultimate hole at North Hants – the golf club where 2013 US Open winner Justin Rose made a name for himself as an amateur 21 years ago, proved costly.
Robson went to the same American college on a golf scholarship as the new Masters champion, and while their college careers were a couple of years apart, there is clearly something in the Jacksonville State University coaching set up that breeds winners.
Tom topped the leader board three times in his four years at the Alabama college between 2009 and 2013 and ever since he graduated and took the decision not to pursue a life in the pro ranks, he has remained a constant factor in the Hampshire amateur team and threatened to extend his already illustrious list of titles.
Work commitments that restricted him to playing golf at weekends, and meant he rarely had the time to enter any of the national championships held during week days, did not stop him from reaching the final of last year’s Hampshire, Isle of Wight and Channel Islands Amateur Championship – the title he won at Liphook back in 2009.
Since then, he has become the assistant secretary of Rowlands Castle’s Golf Club – where he won the Hampshire Junior Championship back in 2006, having started life as a junior at Lee-on-the-Solent.
Along the way and via the USA, he has also won the Courage Trophy, Hampshire’s leading 36-hole strokeplay event in 2011, and he has lead the 36-hole qualifying stage in the County Championship on two occasions since 2009, as well as playing in two English County Finals in the last three years.
But victory in the Hampshire Hog would have topped all his domestic honours so far.
Robson, who has accepted the challenge of managing the Hampshire Colts team in 2016 after Neil Dawson stood down after leading them to the South East Division Final at Rowlands last year, which Hampshire drew with Essex, was philosophical after coming up short at Fleet.
He said: “I hit my drive tight to the right fence on the par five 17th. I had been four-under on the back nine, but dropped a shot at the 16th. I didn’t know Matthew Jordan was leading on five-under going down the last in front of me but I thought I had to make at least a birdie and then try and find out where I stood going down the last.
“I hit my two iron from a poor lie but I didn’t see the root of some heather and it squirted straight into the bunker some 50 yards from the green.
“I then found the sand again in the green side bunker. It used to be a little pot bunker, but they have extended it so it is now an easier shot.
“I splashed out to ten feet but missed the par putt and then missed a fiddler coming back, which left me stuffed.”
Worse was to follow on the last where he gave his birdie putt from some 15 feet a good rap to try to repair some of the damage – only to find out as he came off the 18th green that the double bogey had also cost him the prestigious Hampshire Salver for the best 72-hole aggregate in the Hampshire Hog and Selborne Salver, 24 hours earlier at Blackmoor.
Instead the trophy donated by the Hampshire Golf Union back in 1979, went to Bristol’s Josh Hilleard, winner of the Berkhamsted Trophy a week earlier, who also took runners-up spot in the Hog with rounds of 69, 70 to go with his 71, 68 at Blackmoor – a total of level par.
Tom who finished the weekend on one-over added: “If I had laid up on 17 and made sure of the birdie, I would not have given the Hampshire Salver to Josh. I was trying to stay in contention for the Hog, but being two behind, the smart move would have been staying in contention in the Salver.”
Since switching to becoming the assistant to Rowlands’ long-serving secretary Keith Fisher, Robson insists he has not been finding sneaky half hours to practice his putting or getting out on to the course.
Tom laughed: “I have only played one round at Rowlands Castle this year although I do get invited to play in a fair few things elsewhere so I am not complaining. Obviously it showed in the way I played.”
It meant Hampshire are still looking for their first win in the Hog in 20 years since Lee-on-the-Solent’s Russell Tait followed up Justin Rose’s famous win in 1995 as a 14-year-old, with victory in 1996.
Corhampton’s England A squad member Scott Gregory, who led the Hog with six holes to play two years ago – before the heavens opened and forced play to be abandoned handing victory to first round leader Sam Edwards – never recovered from his first round 73, taking one shot more after lunch, down in 38th place.
Robson was 13th at Blackmoor 24 hours earlier after finishing on two-over par in very tough scoring conditions. The players were greeted by morning rain and in a fresh, bitterly cold north westerly wind, the course played particularly long.
Despite the very wet winter, Blackmoor’s bunker refurbishment programme and the on-going drainage work of the past few years meant the greens were still remarkably firm despite the downpour on Friday, which did at least make them a touch more receptive with the championship committee again placing the pins in some fairly tricky locations, still mindful of the remarkable nine-under par 60 shot by Andy Sullivan five years ago.
While there was another connection to Danny Willett with the Selborne champion – Yorkshire’s James Walker is the son of England Golf head coach Graham Walker, who coached Willett in his amateur days in the national elite squad – his pair of 68s just edged out Norfolk’s Jack Yule who returned a 69 and 68 and Dorset’s former Hampshire Junior Champion Jack Singh-Brar, who led the county championship qualifier at Blackmoor in 2013, who shot 68, 69 to take third on countback.
At lunchtime, the members were beginning to wonder if Blackmoor might produce only its second-ever homegrown winner in the shape of Sam Parsons, the former Hampshire under-14 and under-16 player, who was a member at Waterlooville, before switching to the heathland course further up the A3 in East Hampshire.
Parsons, playing off scratch, opened with a fine 68 despite a dropped shot at the tenth, his first hole.
He bounced back holeing a 15-footer for a three on the 14th and bounced back from a bogey four at the par three 15th by hitting his wedge to just four feet on the par five 16th for a birdie four.
The round was gaining momentum fast and many of the top England players on display would have settled for his birdie on the par three 17th, holing from 20 feet after his eight only found the front eye on the tricky short hole.
A four up the last took him to the turn in 33 and traded a bogey and birdie at the fifth and seventh respectively to finish on one-under, tied with Robson, who had also made his customary fast start after three birdies and two bogeys.
The two Hampshire lads were in a six-way tied for second with David Hague, from Malton & Norton – the same Yorkshire club where European Tour winner Simon Dyson made his name – at the top of the leaderboard, one shot clear after a 67.
But Parsons quickly found the rarefied atmosphere among the country’s elite a little too much having got out of the habit of playing 36 holes regularly in a day as a junior and slumped to a 79, which left him down in 51st place, three shots behind Blackmoor’s Mark Burgess, still the sole host club winner back in 2009.
Hampshire’s home contingent was surprisingly headed by Hayling’s Toby Burden, fresh from regaining his amateur status last year, playing in his first big event.
A steady set of 70s was good enough for 11th place on two-over, just edging out Robson’s 72 on countback, while Hayling’s Hampshire Amateur Champion Darren Walkley, was a little frustrated to come back in 69 after an opening 72.
Just a week after his trip to the Europro Tour Qualifying School, Walkley was denied 15th place on countback by Gregory, who also carded a 72 and 69, looking for a win after his runner-up in the Spanish Amateur Championship last month, when France’s British Amateur Champion Romaine Langasque got the better of the former Waterlooville player, who knows Parsons well from their junior days at the club.
Ben Lobacz was one of two other Blackmoor players to qualify for the event but he could not find the form which propelled him to the Hampshire county final on the same course three years ago and the postman had to settle for 58th place with scores of 71 and 78.