BROKENHURST Manor has hosted the county championship four times since 1993 when Martin Young first attempted to land the Sloane-Stanley Challenge Cup – and 12 times in its 111-year history.
But when the New Forest club hosts the 121st Hampshire, Isle of Wight and Channel Islands Amateur Championship this weekend, the three-time winner will be missing from the tee sheet for Friday’s first and second rounds.
Sixty-six amateurs will try to win the Pechell Salver before moving into four rounds of matchplay knockout to decide the new champion on Sunday afternoon.
Although Young has won the salver in the 36-hole qualifying competition twice in more than 30 years of entering the oldest county championship in the country – and gone on to land the Sloane-Stanley Challenge Cup three times in total – he has often struggled to make the top 16 to ensure at least one weekend tee time in the matchplay section.
In recent years, he has found qualifying less nervy, but this week his focus is on competing in the English Seniors Championship (June 3-5) for the first time, having turned 55 – the qualifying age – after last summer’s event.
Young, who holds most of the key records in Hampshire, will be tackling two of East Anglia’s premier courses – one round at Woodbridge, in Suffolk, while the top 30 will play the final round at the host course Purdis Heath, in Ipswich.
Martin said: “It will be strange not competing in the Hampshire championship when it’s at the course where I have been a member since 1983.
“I played at Purdis with my brother Jonathan and Martin Lemesurier when we won the Hampshire Team Championship to play in the English Champion Club more than 20 years ago.
“I played a practice round here on Tuesday and I did not recognise a single hole. They have removed a lot of the trees and its more gorse and heathland than Brok, as is Woodbridge.
“I was not quite old enough to play in this last year, but it is an open event so the best Welsh, Irish and Scottish Seniors are here for the English Seniors Strokeplay Championship.
Martin Young won his first Sloane-Stanley Challenge Cup at the 2011 Hampshire Amateur Championship at Army GC. Picture by ANDREW GRIFFIN / AMG PICTURES
“I played in the closed Seniors Championship just for English players last summer and reached the quarter-finals, at Burhill.
“The interesting thing is over the next couple of years, the event goes to Liphook and Hindhead – two courses I know very well – but I will just try and do well this week.“
Young finished second in the English Mid-Amateur Championship held at his home club in 2016 – when he was the long-time leader – trying to win the Logan Trophy for a second time. He won the country’s Over 35s championship when it was held at Hayling, back in 2006.
That was the course where he won the second of his three Hampshire crowns, back in 2016, having triumphed at Hockley two years earlier when he became the first and only player to land the Hampshire Slam, winning all four men’s titles in the same season, including the Courage Trophy, the county strokeplay championship, as well as the Pechell Salver and the Mid-Am.
Young, who will no doubt be keen to add an English Seniors crown to his Logan victory, added: “I have not done too badly in the county championship, having finally worked it out when I won at the Army in 2011.
“I played when Brok hosted the championship in 1993, I didn’t qualify for the knockout – the second round was cancelled after a rain delay – there were a few unhappy players who were under-par in the second round.
“I was knocked out in the first round in 1999 when Stoneham’s Darren Henley went on to win it, beating Craig Humphrey in the final.”
Brokenhurst Manor’s Martin Young with his Hampshire Slam in 2014. Picture by ANDREW GRIFFIN / AMG PICTURES
In 2010, when Martin was attempting to become the first player to win back-to-back county championships for the first time since Brian Winteridge in 1982 – a record that has not been broken since – it was the other member of the Young family who took the trophy as Jonathan beat Jersey’s Gary O’Neill in the final.
Five years later, Hayling’s Darren Walkley went on to claim his first county championship, beating Rowlands Castle’s Tom Robson – the winner in 2009 – in a topsy-turvy final.
Martin said: “I have not really looked at the entry list for this weekend – I wish everyone well. The course looked good the other day. And the rain this week will help.
“I think it will be won by someone with a bit of experience, especially if it stays bouncy. And they need to hole a few putts, because it’s matchplay.”
There are five former county champions in the field – county captain Toby Burden, from Hayling (2019), Stoneham’s Owen Grimes – the winner in 2018 – defending champion Joe Buenfeld, from Bramshaw, and Blackmoor’s 2024 champion Sam Parsons, who won the Waterlooville Open beating Order of Merit leader Rob Wheeler, from North Hants, in a five-hole play-off.
The latter pair have appeared in the last two county games held at the Harry Colt designed course, and have good records there in matchplay.
The fifth past winner is Wellow’s former England Boys captain Dave Porter, the current Hampshire U16s manager, who played with Justin Rose in the Hampshire team that reached the English Boys Final in 1996, aged just 13.
•121st HAMPSHIRE, ISLE OF WIGHT AND CHANNEL ISLANDS AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP TEE-TIMES
Left to right: Paul Graham (Brokenhurst Manor), Shane Antill, Robin Williams (Blackmoor), Mark Sawford (Rowlands Castle), Terry Breen (BMGC capt), Jon Young (BMGC), Tom Robson (Rowlands Castle) Gary Barrow and Michael Fisher (BMGC) at the 2010 Hampshire county championship. Picture by ANDREW GRIFFIN / AMG PICTURES