Andy DevaneyKent U25 Championship winner Abe Bignell needed 36 holes, one extra trip to Knole Park’s first tee and a six-foot iron shot to finally separate himself from Max Moseley.
The Rochester & Cobham Park player took the 2026 title after the pair finished tied on 139, one under par, before Bignell settled the matter at the first sudden-death hole.
Bignell and Moseley force the Kent U25 play-off
Knole Park had spent the day asking awkward questions of 48 of Kent’s leading young golfers. Across 36 holes of scratch medal play, in hot conditions on a course that punishes imprecision without needing to make a song and dance about it, the leaderboard tightened rather than stretched.
Bignell and home player Moseley emerged with the only numbers that mattered at the very top: 139 apiece. That was one stroke better than a sizeable queue at level par and enough to send both men back out for extra holes.
The timing supplied one of the stranger pieces of theatre a county championship is likely to enjoy. A near-total solar eclipse preceded the play-off. Golf has produced plenty of dark moments for players over the years; this one, at least, came with astronomical justification.
Knole Park’s first hole decides the title
The opening hole at Knole Park is not much interested in easing players into their round. It is a 192-yard uphill par three to a sloping green, with particular trouble waiting for anything leaked to the right.
Bignell, playing first, delivered the decisive blow early. His iron finished roughly six feet from the hole, the sort of shot that changes the conversation before the other player has even taken the club back.
Moseley answered with a solid strike but faced a long putt from the back-right section of the green to a front-left hole location. His first attempt tracked well and ran just past Bignell’s marker. The return for par then slipped by.
That left Bignell with two putts for the championship. He used them. Sudden death can sound rather more dramatic than it looks; sometimes the winning act is simply not doing anything foolish.
Five players finish level par at Knole Park
Behind the leading pair, five players ended 36 holes on 140.
Toby Colville of Prince’s and Ben Sands of Knole Park each shot 72 and 68. Dartford’s Harrison Costello put together matching rounds of 70, while Luca Alderson of Poult Wood followed a 67 with a 73.
Bearsted’s Oscar Ford also returned 72 and 68, and took third place on countback.
The congestion around par said plenty about the championship. Nobody escaped, nobody disappeared over the horizon, and one stroke ultimately separated a play-off for the title from a five-man group looking up at it.
Toby Colville wins the Handicap Challenge Cup
Colville had another reason to leave Knole Park satisfied. His nett rounds of 69 and 65 produced a 134 total and victory in the Handicap Challenge Cup.
Ashford’s Elliott Flisher finished three shots behind after rounds of 68 and 69 for 137, while Kieran Parkins of Sundridge Park completed the prize-winning places with nett scores of 70 and 68.
It was an accomplished second strand to a day in which Colville had also been among the five players tied at level par in the scratch championship.
Kent U25 Championship winner can defend in 2027
For Bignell, the finish was admirably uncomplicated after a long, hot day and a leaderboard with very little elbow room. One precise iron, one opponent’s missed par putt and two safe putts were enough to turn a tie into a county title.
As Kent U25 Championship winner, Bignell is due to have the opportunity to defend the title when Kent Golf returns to Knole Park in 2027.
The venue, one suspects, will remain beautiful, demanding and entirely unmoved by reputation.
For now, the 2026 title belongs to Bignell — won by one shot that mattered, on one extra hole, after the sun itself had briefly joined the gallery.
