Hydes and Charles Progress to Round of 32

Manchester, England: New Zealander James Hydes and Australian Max Charles are keeping the Asia-Pacific flag flying at The 127th Amateur Championship at Royal Lytham & St Annes and St Annes Old Links.

In the Round of 64, Hydes defeated Richard Knightly 2 & 1 while Charles overcame Paul Beauvy two-up.

In the Round of 32 on Thursday, Hydes faces Peter O’Keffe and Charles takes on William Hopkins.

The four other Asia-Pacific representatives who qualified from the 36-hole stroke play segment on Monday and Tuesday were all eliminated – Australians Jack Buchanan, Jasper Stubbs and Joshua Greer and Hong Kong's Leon D'Souza.

Buchanan put up a brave fight against Mark Power, a member of the Great Britain and Ireland Walker Cup side at Seminole last year, but was beaten one-down.

Stubbs fell 4 & 2 to Swede Ludvig Aberg, third on the World Amateur Golf Ranking, and Greer lost 6 & 4 to Welshman James Ashfield, a semi-finalist last year. D'Souza went down to Frenchman Nathan Legendre.

The Australian trio of Hayden Hopewell, Connor McKinney and Samuel Slater all lost out in preliminary round matches on Wednesday morning.

Meanwhile, England’s match play specialist John Gough stayed on course to make history as he progressed to the last-32. Gough has won 20 of his last 22 match play ties and saw off the challenge of Denmark’s Frederik Birkelund 8 & 6 to continue his knockout form.

Gough also won the Lytham Trophy at Royal Lytham & St Annes in May and can emulate Sir Michael Bonallack by winning The Amateur and Lytham Trophy in the same year. Only Bonallack has achieved that feat after he won the 1965 Lytham Trophy and then triumphed in that year’s Amateur at Royal Porthcawl.

While leading qualifier Jonathan Broomhead from South Africa continued his title bid, beating home club member Callan Barrow by one hole, there was disappointment for another English player, Barclay Brown. The Walker Cup player was beaten 4 & 3 by Dane Gustav Frimodt, who came through 36 holes after a preliminary round victory against Lars van der Vight of the Netherlands.

Joe Harvey, the beaten finalist in 2020, was also a winner, defeating Jerry Ji from the Netherlands by one hole. However, there was disappointment for last year’s runner-up at Nairn, Monty Scowsill, who bowed out 6 & 4 to Aldrich Potgieter from South Africa.

Scotland’s Sandy Scott, fit-again after almost two years of wrist injury problems, was victorious over Welshman Matt Roberts 2 & 1, but his younger brother, Calum, was knocked out by Irishman Jack Hearn 2 & 1.

Sam Bairstow – the leading GB&I player in the field – came through against Norwegian Herman Huus by one hole.

Italian Matteo Cristoni had a marathon day, winning at the 24th in the morning against South African Jordan Peter Duminy, before a one-hole win against Englishman Olly Huggins.

The R&A will provide live broadcast coverage of the quarter-finals and semi-finals on Friday and the 36-hole Final on Saturday. This can be watched on The R&A’s website as well as its YouTube channel.