Mid Herts Golf Club’s Connor O’Brien won the Welwyn Garden City GC Commemoration Jug on Saturday.

The prestigious tournament was set up by club members to mark the first Open Championship win of WGC’s own Sir Nick Faldo at Muirfield in 1987.

Open to all champions of clubs affiliated to the English Golf Union, with competitors from as far afield as the Isle of Man and Yorkshire competing for the trophy, this year’s top prize was scooped by the Wheathampstead club’s O’Brien.

The 48-strong field, including four past champions, returned some variable scoring in the morning round, with many players struggling to master the slick greens.

Jon Siddons led the way with his 69, the only score under-par.

There were five players close behind, shooting a level-par 70, including O’Brien, last year’s champion Alex Macarthur and 2014 champion Nick Brooker.

The afternoon round soon got pulses racing with a hole in one at the 132 yard third hole for Andy Grimwood from Spalding, only the second ever in the competition.

Again only one player beat par in the afternoon.

This time it was O’Brien who putted on the ninth hole for a 69, leaving him one shot clear of both Siddons and Brooker, whose putt on the 18th lipped out.

The Tom Lewis Medal for lowest round of the day went to the champion O’Brien, who beat Siddons on countback.