American amateur Ethan Fang has beaten Co Louth’s Gavin Tiernan 1 up in the Amateur Championship final at Royal St George’s after a titanic 36-hole contest.
The win earns the world number seven and University of Oklahoma student a place in next month’s Open Championship at Portrush and an invite to the Masters next April.
Tiernan had been the first player to reach the final after coming through the strokeplay pre-qualifying, and played 139 holes this week before his 36-hole final on Saturday, and was a surprise package to make it there at 1,340th in the amateur world rankings.
There was no more than one hole between two players for much of this ding-dong battle, with Tiernan leading for much of the first 18, his highlight a superb tee shot to a few feet at the 16th that enabled him to lead 1 up after 18.
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Fang won the first hole of the second 18 holes with a par and then took the lead for the first time after 23 holes after another Tiernan bogey. However, hitting the par 5 seventh green in two enabled the Co Louth player to get it back to all-square.
After a few more back and forths, Fang took seemingly a decisive 2 up lead by taking the 14th and 15th holes, before Tiernan holed two big putts on 16 and 17 to bring the match all-square heading up the 36th hole of the day. But Fang closed out the match with a brilliant iron approach to five feet as he holed the putt to become the first American winner of the Amateur since Drew Weaver in 2007.
Tiernan was looking to become the ninth Irish winner of the competition, which has been running since 1885. Previous winners include Sergio Garcia and José María Olazábal.
