Not even a spectacular hole-out by Liphook Golf Club’s former EuroPro Tour player Darren Walkley could fire Hampshire to their first English County Finals in seven years, as Essex pipped them in the South East Qualifier.

Darren, who played with Europe’s best prospects on the mini-tours – before quitting the pro game during the pandemic after five years in the paid ranks – striped his drive up the hill on the last.

In front of a growing crowd of players and county officials from the counties in contention – Walkley swept a sweetly struck 58-degree wedge, and watched as the ball bounced before tracking into the bottom of the cup.

Darren said: “I had 55 yards and was trying to get it close to make a birdie. I knew it had a chance and that it would run out with a bit of break like a putt – so I tried to allow for that.”

The eagle two gave Walkley a second round 67 – five better than his morning effort, which had been Hampshire’s highest score in the first round, and therefore discarded with only the best five counting.

But, within a couple of minutes, the leaderboard was updated to show Essex’s England international Zach Chegwidden had come home in 68.

That four-under score gave Essex their first victory in the event since 2009 when they denied Hampshire a hat-trick of successive wins at Suffolk’s Aldeburgh.

Walkley, who missed the six-man shootout a year ago, having lost the county championship final a month earlier – was back in the six-man team for the first time since he won the 2015 Hampshire, Isle of Wight and Channel Islands Amateur Championship.

The full-time carpenter had briefly given his team-mates hopes of reeling in lunchtime leaders Berkshire, Bucks and Oxfordshire’s 16-under score in the morning round.

The wind had whipped up around Brighton’s Devil’s Dyke on the Sussex Downs, sending their scores soaring after lunch. Berkshire, Bucks and Oxfordshire took 22 shots more, while Hampshire added a four-under total to their first round score to post a total of 708, only for Essex to shoot 706.

Walkley reflected: “It was great to finish by holing out like that in front of everyone, but it didn’t mean anything in the end, which was a shame.

“Perhaps if I had played better in the first round, things might have been different and we could have been going to the finals in September.”

Hampshire plugged away valiantly all day in search of their eighth win in the South East Qualifier since 2001, including three in a row from 2015 to 2017, when they claimed the English County Championship crown for the second time in their history – and the first since 1996 when a teenage Justin Rose was in the team.

But two late mistakes by fellow Liphook member George Saunders – who made a triple-bogey seven after losing his tee shot on the last – and a double-bogey six on the 16th by Brokenhurst Manor veteran Martin Young, playing in his 24th consecutive six-man, ultimately proved costly.

Darren added: “Nobody goes out intending to hit bad golf shots so no one is to blame that we didn’t win. We have a great team spirit that took us to our first league title in 11 years last year.

“When we got the draw and I saw I was the last player out for us, I had a funny feeling that it would come down to me to try to get us over the line.”

Walkley, who made three birdies and three bogeys in his level-par 72, opened with three quick birdies as he plundered the Dyke’s unusual start, with three par-fives in the first four holes.

He made another birdie at the par-five 11th and got to four-under with a three at the 15th – only to give it back after failing to get up-and-down on the 16th, as he finished in a share of fifth overall out of the 66 players competing from the 11 counties.

Saunders, who shot a three-under-par 69 before lunch, with six birdies and a double-bogey, was four-under with four to play. But he dropped five shots to fall down the leaderboard from second to 12th thanks to his 73.

By Andrew Griffin