Gavin Tiernan narrowly missed out on glory in the Amateur Championship final at Royal St George's as US opponent Ethan Fang came out on top.
Tiernan, from the County Louth club in Baltray, had confounded expectations by surging to the final.
The 19-year old is ranked outside the top 1000 male amateur golfers in the world at 1340th.
But he beat Riccardo Fantinelli of Italy, who is ranked more than 1000 places above him, in the semi-final by 4&3 on Friday to set up the final meeting with Fang.
However, it was the American who would triumph one-up after their 36-hole battle was decided on the final green, with Tiernan having led for significant portions of the contest.
Fang's approach to the final flag was near perfect, leaving Tiernan with a very long birdie putt to put pressure on his opponent.
And it looked like it would drop, however, the putt just crept past the hole, allowing Fang to roll in the four-footer to take the prestigious title and earn entry into next month's Open, as well as the 2026 Masters.
