All through his junior golf days, and into his fledgling but increasingly impressive senior career, Justin Kehoe has always had the reputation of being something of a cool customer. Yesterday, The Iceman Cometh, and he wasn't only hot - he was sizzling.

In a quite remarkable exhibition for someone contesting his first final, the 21-year-old captured the South of Ireland amateur championship, sponsored by Irish Shell, at Lahinch yesterday without the need to go beyond the 14th hole.

At that stage, Kehoe, from Birr, was eight-under-par - including an eagle, seven birdies and a solitary bogey - for the decider to leave his opponent, Stephen Browne, wondering what on earth he had done to deserve such a lesson.

"Dreamlike," said Kehoe of his performance. "I can't believe I played so well. I just saw the shots I wanted to play and went for them."

Whatever the secret was, the recent graduate of UCD, where he was on a golfing scholarship, discovered the so-called "zone". Nothing, not even Browne's attempted fightback, could deflect him from his task at hand as he eventually secured a 5 and 4 win.

Introduced to golf as a six-year-old by his father, Brendan, who, as his son grew up, "drilled it into me never to get upset", Kehoe looked to the exploits of his clubman Richie Coughlan, who nowadays plays on the US Tour, as an inspiration.

Yesterday Kehoe had the distinction of bringing the first "major" championship back to Birr. And the current Irish international did so with a display of aggressive, attacking golf that has rarely before been witnessed in a championship final.

Ironically, Kehoe and Browne were room-mates on a trip to Biarritz in France two weeks ago when, as part of an official GUI team, they won a Grand Prix tournament.

Browne noticed that Kehoe's putting stroke looked extremely solid, and told him so. "That comment actually gave me the confidence to continue with it," remarked Kehoe, and he used it to devastating effect in the final.

From the start, Kehoe was on fire. He covered the opening three holes in birdie-eagle-birdie to be three-up, leaving his opponent with an unenivable battle.

Browne managed to reduce the deficit to two with a winning birdie on the fifth, but Kehoe's putting brought him another par on the eighth - where he holed from 35 feet - to bring his advantage back up to three holes.

Kehoe's only error came on the ninth where he three-putted from 40 feet (still turning in 32 strokes) and Browne holed a gutsy putt for par to be two down at the turn.

When Browne hit a superb drive down the 10th fairway, and Kehoe then pushed his tee-shot just off the fairway but behind a mound, the Hermitage player felt it was still all to play for.

Kehoe, though, produced a quite magnificent approach. Some 192 yards from the pin, his four-iron approach to the elevated green finished eight feet from the hole and he rolled in the birdie putt.

His golf in the homeward run was sublime: an eight-iron to 15 feet for birdie on the 11th; another eight-iron to 10 feet for birdie on the 12th, and a majestic bunker shot of 30 yards to three feet for another birdie on the 13th.

"It was only when I was taking the ball out of the hole on the 13th that I copped on that I had just had four birdies in a row," he said. To which Browne replied: "Four birdies on the trot . . . there is simply no answer to that!"

Browne, too, had birdied that 13th hole, holing from six feet, to keep the match alive. He played extremely solid golf - he was two-under himself - with only one poor shot, his approach at the 14th, and said he was disappointed to lose, but not with the way he played.

"Justin played incredible golf," he added.

Semi-finals: J Kehoe (UCD/Birr) bt M McGinley (Grange) 2 and 1; S Browne (Hermitage) bt D Mortimer (Connemara) 6 and 5. Final: Kehoe bt Browne 5 and 4.